Cutter Development Guidelines

Note

New to Cutter development? Check out our tutorial for new developers.

Common Usage

CutterCore Class

This is the main class where every link with Rizin is made. It is unique across the whole process. To access it, simply call Core().

Example:

Core()->getOffset();

Calling a Rizin Command

There are multiple ways to call a Rizin command:

• CutterCore::cmdj(<command>) - To be used with json commands like cmdj("agj") or cmdj("aflj"). This is the command we used to fetch structured data from Rizin.

• CutterCore::cmdRaw(<command>) - Executes a single Rizin command without going through Rizin shell functionality like output redirects, grep, and multiple command parsing.

The command then returns its output. This should be used when a command doesn’t have output or the output should be handled as-is. If possible, using the JSON variation with cmdj is always preferred.

• CutterCore::cmdRawAt(<command>, <address>) - Executes a single Rizin command in a given address and returns the output. This helps avoiding weird strings concatenation like cmd("ph " + hash + " @ " + QString::num(address)).

• CutterCore::cmd() - (Discouraged) Only use it when cmdj or cmdRaw cannot be used. This is used for complex commands using concatenation of several commands (px 5; pd 7; afl;), for grepping (pd 5~call). for commands inside commands (?e `afn.` ) and so on. This is also used when the output is complex and is not parsed correctly in cmdRaw. Make sure to carefully sanitize user-controlled variables that are passed to the command, to avoid unexpected command injections.

Generally, if one needs to retrieve information from a Rizin command, it is preferred to use the JSON API.

Example:

QJsonArray array = Core()->cmdj("pdj 1 @ main").array();

Seek the Current File

To modify Rizin seek use CutterCore::seek(const RVA offset). This is important because it will emit a CutterCore::seekChanged(RVA offset) signal. Never ever call cmd("s offset");

Example:

Core()->seek(0x00C0FFEE);

Note

Cutter also supports a silent seek which doesn’t trigger the seekChanged event and doesn’t add new entries to the seek history.

Creating a Widget

Make sure to connect the CutterCore::seekChanged(RVA offset) signal so your widget refreshes its output when Rizin seek is modified (switching to another function, etc.).

Coding Style

In general, we follow a slightly customized version of the official Qt guidelines to format the code. Before sending a pull request, you will need to use `clang-format`<https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html>`__ (version 8 or newer) to format the code. The command line for formatting the code according to the style is:

clang-format -style=file -i src/filename.cpp

If your changes were done on many files across the codebase, you can use this oneliner to tun clang-format on the entire ‘src’ directory:

find ./src -regex '.*\.\(cpp\|h\)' -exec clang-format -style=file -i {} \;

In contrast to the official guidelines of Qt, in Cutter we always use curly braces in conditional statements, even if the body of a conditional statement contains only one line.

// Wrong
if (address.isEmpty())
   return false;
// Correct
if (address.isEmpty()) {
   return false;
}
// Wrong
for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
   qDebug("%i", i);
// Correct
for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
   qDebug("%i", i);
}

Includes

Strive to include only required definitions inside header files. This will avoid triggering additional unnecessary compilations.

If you only need to know that a class exists but don’t need the prototype, you can declare the class like this:

class MyClassThatExists;
/** ... **/
private:
    MyClassThatExists *classInstance;

And then include the class header inside your .cpp so you can use that class.

If you need something in the source file (.cpp) that is not a class member, then add the include in the source file.

The includes must be ordered from local to global. That is, first include any local header file (with double quotes like #include “common/Helpers.h”. Then, after an empty newline, include Qt definitions like #include <QShortcut>. Finally, include the standard C++ headers you need.

Includes must be sorted by alphabetical order.

Docstrings

Our API reference is generated using Doxygen, so when it comes to function documentation, please use the following format:

/**
 * @brief Add a new param to the accumulator
 */
virtual void accumulate(RefreshDeferrerParams params) =0;

Loops

We use the C++11 foreach loop style, which means any “foreach” loop should look like:

for (QJsonValue value : importsArray) {
    doSomething(value);
}

nullptr

Please do not use 0 nor Q_NULLPTR, only use nullptr.

Example:

QObject *object = nullptr;

Connecting Qt Signals

Use one of the following methods for connecting signals to slots:

// typically you will make connection in the constructor to a member of current class
connect(this->ui->button1, &QPushButton::clicked,
        this, &MyObject::buttonClicked); // Good
// you can also connect directly other object slots
connect(checkbox, &QCheckBox::toggled, widget, &QWidget::setEnabled); // Good
// use lambda for passing extra arguments
connect(button1, &QPushButton::clicked, this, [this](){ foo(getBar()); }); // Good

This syntax performs compile-time type checks and allows the use of lambda functions. Other approaches for connecting signals can silently break at runtime.

Don’t use the older macro based syntax or automatic name based connections.

// SIGNAL and SLOT macros
connect(sender, SIGNAL(clicked), this, SLOT(buttonClicked)); // BAD
// automatic name based connection
slot:
   void on_actionNew_triggered(); // BAD
// 3 argument connect without receiver object
connect(sender, &SomeObject::signal, [this](){ this->foo(getBar()); }); // BAD

General Coding Advices

Functions Documentation

You can find the class documentation in the API Reference menu item.

Updating the Git Submodules

Git submodules play a major part in Cutter. This, because Cutter is powered by Rizin, its parent project, and it tries to stay up-to-date with its recent version, which allows us to implement new features, and enjoy bug fixes and performance improvements on Rizin. Often, we need to update the Rizin submodule or the others, to push their most recent version to Cutter.

You can view the list of all the submodules from the cutter root folder with:

git config --file .gitmodules --get-regexp path | awk '{ print $2 }'

To update all the submodules at once, run these commands from the cutter root folder:

git submodule foreach git pull origin master
git add submodule_name_1 submodule_name_2
git commit -m "Update submodules"

More likely, you’ll only need to update the rizin submodule. In order to update one submodule individually, use the following code:

cd rizin
git checkout master && git pull
cd ..
git add rizin
git commit -m "Update rizin submodule"

Useful Resources (Qt Development)

• Signals & Slots

• Model/View Programming - read this if you are going to work with a list or table-like widgets

• QAction