Load file
This submenu allows you to load additional files into the database.
Reload the input file
This command reloads the same input file into the database. IDA tries to retain as much information as possible in the database. All the names, comments, segmentation information and similar will be retained.
Only the values of individual bytes will be changed.
This command works for some input file types only: if the file was loaded into the database with special settings, this command may fail. In this case, use Dump database to IDC file command and reload the file manually.
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load additional file
This command loads a binary file. The new file is added to the current database and all existing information is retained.
The file content will appear as unexplored bytes in the program.
This command only allows you to load binary files.
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load IDS file
This command loads an IDS file.
An IDS file contains information about well-known functions (such as functions from MS Windows API), namely:
IDS files are automatically loaded if they are found in the IDS directory. This command allows you to load an IDS file from any directory, even after the main file has been loaded into the database.
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load debug information file
This command loads a DBG file.
If the program being disassembled has a companion DBG file, then this command may be used to load information from a DBG file into the database. IDA loads DBG files automatically if it can find them in the directory with the input file.
The built-in debug information loader cannot load NB10 format files and PDB files. To load those files, please use a special plugin, PDB.DLL, which can be run manually using Edit->Plugins submenu. This plugin uses MS Windows DLLs to load the debug information and therefore has the following limitations:
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load PDB debug information file
This command loads a PDB file.
If the program being disassembled has a companion PDB file, then this command may be used to load information from the PDB file into the database.
By default IDA uses in-house code to parse and load PDB files. However, our code can not parse old v2.0 PDB files. For them, IDA can fall back to using Microsoft DLLs (the default is "do not fall back"). Please read more in cfg/pdb.cfg.
Command line switch '-Opdb:option1:option2' overrides for ida session the value in cfg/pdb.cfg.
List of options
Example
Ida will not load PDB plugin for this session.
Load TDS debug information file
This command loads a TDS file.
If the program being disassembled has a companion TDS file, this command may be used to load information from the TDS file into the database.
The TDS file must be placed in the same directory together with the input file.
The LoadTdsFile command launches a special plugin TDS.DLL which can be run manually using Edit->Plugins submenu.
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load FLIRT signature file
This command allows you to apply an additional signature file to the program.
A signature file contains patterns of standard runtime functions. With their help, IDA is able to recognize the standard functions and names them accordingly.
IDA attempts to detect the necessary signature files automatically but unfortunately, this is not always possible. This command adds the specified signature file into the planned signature files queue.
Signature files reside in the subdirectories of the SIG directory. Each processor has its own subdirectory. The name of the subdirectory is equivalent to the name of the processor module file (z80 for z80.w32, for example). Note: IBM PC signatures are located in the SIG directory itself. Note: the IDASGN environment variable can be used to specify the location of the signatures directory.
There is another way to load a signature file: you may insert/delete signature files in the following way:
This is a preferred way of applying signatures because useful information, such as the number of identified functions is displayed in the signature window.
FLIRT works only for the processors with normal byte size. The byte size must be equal to 8 (processors with wide bytes like AVR or DSP56K are not supported)
See also Load... submenu commands.
Load C header
This command allows you to apply type declarations from a C header file to the program.
IDA reads and parses the specified header file as a C compiler does. In other words, it mimics the front-end of a C compiler with some restrictions:
Don't forget to specify the compiler and memory model in the compiler setup dialog box before loading a header file.
All type declarations found in the input file are stored in the current database in the form of a type library. These type declarations can be used to define new structure and enumeration definitions by pressing "Add standard structure" or "Add standard enum" buttons in the Add enum type... and Add struct type... dialog boxes.
In the case of an error in the input file, the error messages appear in the message window. In any case, the function declarations that are already parsed are not deleted from the database. IDA stops parsing the input file when 20 errors occur.
IDA 7.7 introduced an alternative header file parser based on libclang.
See also
Load... submenu commands.
IDAClang plugin
The IDAClang plugin is shipped with IDA, and it provides the ability to parse header files that contain arbitrarily complex C/C++/Objective-C source code using the Load C header action.
To enable the IDAClang parser, go to Options>Compiler>Source parser, and select "clang". Then use 'File>Load file>Parse C header file' to invoke the parser on a given source file.
Since IDAClang is based on the third-party libclang parser, it can only parse standalone source files that contain valid C/C++/Objective-C syntax.
See also Load C header command.
See also other File... submenu commands.
Last updated