Successful compilation recipe for Mac Intel + IDA 9.0

[GeckoGB]

Hi,

I've struggled a lot to have HexRaysCodeXplorer compiling successfully on a Mac Intel (Sonoma 14.7.5) for IDA 9.0 SP1. But after a handful of modifications (some already given in other issues here like #122 or #123), i've finally obtained a compiled and working plugin !

So i thought my "recipe" could help others.

STEP 1
You need to make several modifications to makefile.mac. These are the modified lines:

Now macOS and IDA are both 64-bit only, so must remove all 32-bit flags and specify 64-bit ones
LDFLAGS=-shared

ifdef __MAC__ CFLAGS= -fPIC -D__MAC__ -D__PLUGIN__ -std=c++11 -D__EA64__ -arch x86_64 EXT=dylib endif
Also changed extension: dylib instead of mpc

Remove uneeded lpro library:
LIBS= -lida -lc -lpthread -ldl
There's a comment in the file talking about lida64, but seems it doesn't exist (anymore?) on Mac.

add missing source files:
$(SRCDIR)Compat.cpp \
$(SRCDIR)MicrocodeExtractor.cpp \

Comment out unneeded link:
#ln -f -s $(IDA_SDK)/lib/x86_mac_gcc_32/pro.a libpro.a

I've also tested to use clang++ instead of g++, but not necessary: both are working for me. So optionally:
CC=clang++

I also had to modify these lines because of spaces present in the paths of IDA SDK:

LIBDIR=-L./ -L'$(IDA_DIR)'

INCLUDES=-I'$(IDA_SDK)/include' -I'$(HEXRAYS_SDK)/include'

STEP 2
You have to modify the source code file ReconstructableType.cpp and replace all occurences of following types:

struc_t => udt_type_data_t (only 1 occurence)
member_t => udm_t (be carefull: 4 occurences)

STEP 3
Compile like this (of course adapt your paths)
IDA_DIR=/Applications/IDA\ Professional\ 9.0.app/Contents/MacOS IDA_SDK=/Applications/IDA\ Professional\ 9.0.app/Contents/MacOS/idasdk90 make __EA64__=1 __MAC__=1 -f makefile.mac

and then
make install

That's all! Probably not the cleanest solution, but seems to work.

It could probably work for Apple silicon Mac by changing the architecture -arch ARM64 i suppose, but i have no Apple silicon computer, so can't test.

[Chapoly1305]

Thank you for sharing. I have tested on Mac Apple Silicon with IDA 9.1, here is the changes I made.

  1. Makefile Changes (makefile.mac)

  Architecture change:
  - CFLAGS=-m32 -fPIC -D__MAC__ -D__PLUGIN__ -std=c++11
  + CFLAGS= -fPIC -D__MAC__ -D__PLUGIN__ -std=c++11 -D__EA64__ -arch arm64
  - Removed -m32 (32-bit flag)
  - Added -D__EA64__ (64-bit address space)
  - Changed from -arch x86_64 to -arch arm64 for Apple Silicon

  Linker flags:
  - LDFLAGS=-shared -m32
  + LDFLAGS=-shared
  - Removed -m32 flag from linker

  File extension:
  - EXT=pmc
  + EXT=dylib
  - Changed from .pmc to .dylib (proper macOS dynamic library extension)

  Library dependencies:
  - LIBS= -lida -lpro -lc -lpthread -ldl
  + LIBS= -lida -lc -lpthread -ldl
  - Removed -lpro library (doesn't exist on Mac)

  Path handling for spaces:
  - LIBDIR=-L./ -L$(IDA_DIR)
  + LIBDIR=-L./ -L'$(IDA_DIR)'

  - INCLUDES=-I$(IDA_SDK)/include -I$(HEXRAYS_SDK)/include
  + INCLUDES=-I'$(IDA_SDK)/include' -I'$(HEXRAYS_SDK)/include'
  - Added quotes around paths to handle spaces in "IDA Classroom 9.1.app"

  Added missing source files:
    SRC=$(SRCDIR)CodeXplorer.cpp \
        ... existing files ...
  +     $(SRCDIR)Compat.cpp \
  +     $(SRCDIR)MicrocodeExtractor.cpp

  Commented out obsolete linking:
  - ln -f -s $(IDA_SDK)/lib/x86_mac_gcc_32/pro.a libpro.a
  + #ln -f -s $(IDA_SDK)/lib/x86_mac_gcc_32/pro.a libpro.a

  2. Source Code Changes (ReconstructableType.cpp)

  IDA SDK API updates for newer versions:
  - struc_t *struc;
  + udt_type_data_t *struc;

  - member_t *tmpArray = new member_t[struc->memqty];
  + udm_t *tmpArray = new udm_t[struc->memqty];

  - memcpy(tmpArray, struc->members, sizeof(member_t) *struc->memqty);
  + memcpy(tmpArray, struc->members, sizeof(udm_t) *struc->memqty);

  - member_t *member;
  + udm_t *member;

  These changes were necessary because:
  struc_t was renamed to udt_type_data_t in newer IDA SDK versions
  member_t was renamed to udm_t (User Defined Member type)

  The key insight is that Apple Silicon requires ARM64 architecture (-arch arm64) 
instead of x86_64, 64-bit addressing (-D__EA64__), and the newer IDA SDK
  uses different type names for structure definitions.