goblin

Crates.io	goblin
lib.rs	goblin
version	0.10.1
created_at	2016-05-13 09:42:57.45343+00
updated_at	2025-08-15 03:49:56.736766+00
description	An impish, cross-platform, ELF, Mach-o, and PE binary parsing and loading crate
homepage
repository	https://github.com/m4b/goblin
max_upload_size
id	5054
size	1,199,138

(m4b)

documentation

https://docs.rs/goblin

README

libgoblin

say the right words

Documentation

https://docs.rs/goblin/

changelog

Usage

Goblin requires rustc 1.85.0 (Rust 2024 edition).

Add to your Cargo.toml

[dependencies]
goblin = "0.10"

Features

awesome crate name
zero-copy, cross-platform, endian-aware, ELF64/32 implementation - wow!
zero-copy, cross-platform, endian-aware, 32/64 bit Mach-o parser - zoiks!
PE 32/64-bit parser - bing!
a Unix and BSD style archive parser (latter courtesy of @willglynn) - huzzah!
many cfg options - it will make your head spin, and make you angry when reading the source!
fuzzed - "I am happy to report that goblin withstood 100 million fuzzing runs, 1 million runs each for seed 1~100." - @sanxiyn
tests

libgoblin aims to be your one-stop shop for binary parsing, loading, and analysis.

Use-cases

Goblin primarily supports the following important use cases:

Core, std-free #[repr(C)] structs, tiny compile time, 32/64 (or both) at your leisure.
Type punning. Define a function once on a type, but have it work on 32 or 64-bit variants - without really changing anything, and no macros! See examples/automagic.rs for a basic example.
std mode. This throws in read and write impls via Pread and Pwrite, reading from file, convenience allocations, extra methods, etc. This is for clients who can allocate and want to read binaries off disk.
Endian_fd. A truly terrible name :laughing: this is for binary analysis like in panopticon or falcon which needs to read binaries of foreign endianness, or as a basis for constructing cross platform foreign architecture binutils, e.g. cargo-sym and bingrep are simple examples of this, but the sky is the limit.

Here are some things you could do with this crate (or help to implement so they could be done):

Write a compiler and use it to generate binaries (all the raw C structs have Pwrite derived).
Write a binary analysis tool which loads, parses, and analyzes various binary formats, e.g., panopticon or falcon.
Write a semi-functioning dynamic linker.
Write a kernel and load binaries using no_std cfg. I.e., it is essentially just struct and const defs (like a C header) - no fd, no output, no std.
Write a bin2json tool, because why shouldn't binary formats be in JSON?

Cfgs

libgoblin is designed to be massively configurable. The current flags are:

elf64 - 64-bit elf binaries, repr(C) struct defs
elf32 - 32-bit elf binaries, repr(C) struct defs
mach64 - 64-bit mach-o repr(C) struct defs
mach32 - 32-bit mach-o repr(C) struct defs
pe32 - 32-bit PE repr(C) struct defs
pe64 - 64-bit PE repr(C) struct defs

te - Terse Executable (TE) repr(C) struct defs

archive - a Unix Archive parser
endian_fd - parses according to the endianness in the binary
std - to allow no_std environments

Maintainers

PE: @kkent030315
Elf: @m4b, open for applications
Mach-o: @m4b, open for applications

Maintainers are first contact reviewers for that particular backend. They are chosen based on prior contributions, activity, base knowledge, and amicable and gregarious behavior :D

Currently, I (@m4b) only have merge rights for all PRs. In the future it is likely, that the maintainer(s) for that given backend will also have merge rights as well.

Lastly, I will still likely give cursory reviews to all PRs, but will mostly/entirely default to the maintainer for that backend.

And always remember the wisdom of Bill and Ted: "Be excellent to each other!"

Contributors

Thank you all :heart: !

In lexicographic order:

Contributing

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, you agree that your contributions are licensed as described in the accompanying LICENSE file (MIT).

Please prefix commits with the affected binary component; the more specific the better, e.g., if you only modify relocations in the elf module, then do "elf.reloc: added new constants for Z80"
Commit messages must explain their change, no generic "changed", or "fix"; if you push commits like this on a PR, be aware @m4b or someone will most likely squash them.
If you are making a large change to a module, please raise an issue first and lets discuss; I don't want to waste your time if its not a good technical direction, or etc.
If your PR is not getting attention, please respond to all relevant comments raised on the PR, and if still no response, ping @m4b in github and also feel free to email @m4b.
Please add tests if you are adding a new feature. Feel free to add tests even if you are not, tests are awesome and easy in rust.

Commit count: 850