Semblance version 0.2

Semblance is eventually meant as a set of tools to manipulate assembly code. Currently it only contains a single program:

dump - produce disassembly and other information from exectable files. Originally written to support NE (New Executable) files due to the lack of any available tool. Currently supports MZ (aka DOS), NE, and PE/PE+ (Portable Executable, i.e. Win32) executables.

Semblance is free software, released under the GNU GPL v3; see the file LICENSE for the details.

Semblance is hosted at the following URL:

https://gitlab.winehq.org/zfigura/semblance

It was originally hosted on GitHub, but has since been moved.

Installing

To build, just run:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

To install to your computer, subsequently run "make install" as root.

About

I originally wrote Semblance as a disassembler for NE images, in the absence of any existing tool. As I wrote it I added some quite useful features, and eventually decided these were useful enough to extend it to PE images as well, where an existing decompilation tool (objdump) had enough annoyances that Semblance actually ended up being more useful.

Some of the notable features of Semblance are: * Instead of indiscriminately trying to dump everything as assembly, it scans entry points and exports, following branches, to determine what instructions are valid code, and dumps only these by default. This avoids dumping data or zeroes, inserted into text sections, as code. * Prints warnings when bogus instructions are disassembled. * Can disassemble NE resources. (PE resources are forthcoming.) * Detects instructions that call PE imports better—e.g. can recognize a call into an IAT. * Prints PE relocations inline. * Supports MASM, NASM, and GAS-based syntax.