idax

Safe, idiomatic Rust bindings for the IDA Pro SDK via the idax C++ wrapper library.

idax provides a concept-driven, fully opaque interface to IDA's analysis engine. All unsafe FFI is encapsulated — users of this crate never write unsafe code. Types that hold SDK resources implement Drop for automatic cleanup.

Prerequisites

• IDA Pro installed in a standard location (see IDA discovery below)
• Rust 2024 edition (nightly or stable 1.85+)
• CMake and a C++23 compiler (the build script compiles the C++ layer automatically)

Installation

[dependencies]
idax = "0.3"

That's it. No build.rs in your crate, no environment variables, no manual library setup. Just cargo run.

IDA discovery

The build script automatically locates your IDA installation:

1. $IDADIR environment variable (explicit override)
2. macOS: scans /Applications/IDA*.app/Contents/MacOS (newest version first)
3. Linux: scans /opt/idapro*, /opt/ida-*, /opt/ida, then ~/ida*

If the IDA SDK isn't available locally, it will be fetched automatically during the build. You can override this with the $IDASDK environment variable.

Runtime: cargo run vs direct execution

cargo run / cargo test — works out of the box. The build script symlinks the real IDA dynamic libraries into the build output directory, and Cargo automatically adds that directory to the dynamic library search path (DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH on macOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Linux).

Direct execution (running the compiled binary outside of Cargo) requires the IDA libraries to be discoverable by the dynamic linker. Options:

# Option 1: Set the library path (recommended for development)
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/Applications/IDA\ Professional\ 9.3.app/Contents/MacOS ./target/release/my-tool  # macOS
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/idapro ./target/release/my-tool                                                # Linux

# Option 2: Add an RPATH to the binary (recommended for deployment)
install_name_tool -add_rpath /Applications/IDA\ Professional\ 9.3.app/Contents/MacOS ./target/release/my-tool  # macOS
patchelf --add-rpath /opt/idapro ./target/release/my-tool                                                       # Linux

# Option 3: Place the binary next to the IDA libraries
cp ./target/release/my-tool /Applications/IDA\ Professional\ 9.3.app/Contents/MacOS/

Quick start

use idax::{database, function, segment};

fn main() -> idax::Result<()> {
    // Initialize the IDA library
    database::init()?;

    // Open a binary for analysis
    database::open("/path/to/binary", true)?;

    // Query metadata
    let path = database::input_file_path()?;
    let md5 = database::input_md5()?;
    println!("Analyzing: {path} (MD5: {md5})");

    // Iterate functions
    let count = function::count()?;
    for i in 0..count {
        let func = function::by_index(i)?;
        println!("  {:#x}: {}", func.start, func.name);
    }

    // Iterate segments
    let seg_count = segment::count()?;
    for i in 0..seg_count {
        let seg = segment::by_index(i)?;
        println!("  {}: {:#x}..{:#x}", seg.name, seg.start, seg.end);
    }

    database::close(false)?;
    Ok(())
}

Module overview

The crate is organized into modules that mirror the C++ ida:: namespace hierarchy. Every module covers a distinct analysis domain:

Core

Analysis objects

Type system

Advanced

Extension points

Error handling

All fallible operations return idax::Result<T> (alias for std::result::Result<T, idax::Error>) or idax::Status (alias for Result<()>). The Error type carries:

• category — ErrorCategory enum: Validation, NotFound, Conflict, Unsupported, SdkFailure, Internal
• code — numeric error code (0 when unspecified)
• message — human-readable description
• context — additional context (e.g. which SDK function failed)

use idax::{function, Error};
use idax::error::ErrorCategory;

match function::at(0xDEAD) {
    Ok(func) => println!("Found: {}", func.name),
    Err(e) if e.category == ErrorCategory::NotFound => {
        println!("No function at that address");
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

RAII / Drop

Types that hold SDK resources implement Drop for automatic cleanup:

Architecture

  Your Rust code
       |
  [ idax ]          safe, idiomatic Rust API
       |
  [ idax-sys ]      raw extern "C" FFI bindings (generated by bindgen)
       |
  [ C shim ]        idax_shim.h / idax_shim.cpp (thin C bridge)
       |
  [ libidax.a ]     idax C++ wrapper library
       |
  [ IDA SDK ]       ida.dylib / ida.so / ida.dll

License

MIT