Brute force string search for BETA10

tools/isledecomp/isledecomp/bin.py

@@ -465,6 +465,22 @@ def _populate_exports(self, export_rva: int, _: int):
             for (func_addr, name_addr) in combined
         ]
 
+    def iter_string(self, encoding: str = "ascii") -> Iterator[Tuple[int, str]]:
+        """Search for possible strings at each verified address in .data."""
+        section = self.get_section_by_name(".data")
+        for addr in self._relocated_addrs:
+            if section.contains_vaddr(addr):
+                raw = self.read_string(addr)
+                if raw is None:
+                    continue
+
+                try:
+                    string = raw.decode(encoding)
+                except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                    continue
+
+                yield (addr, string)
+
     def get_section_by_name(self, name: str) -> Section:
         section = next(
             filter(lambda section: section.match_name(name), self.sections),

tools/isledecomp/isledecomp/compare/core.py

@@ -82,8 +82,9 @@ def __init__(
 
         self._load_cvdump()
         self._load_markers()
-        self._find_original_strings()
+        # Detect floats first to eliminate potential overlap with string data
         self._find_float_const()
+        self._find_original_strings()
         self._match_imports()
         self._match_exports()
         self._match_thunks()
@@ -314,7 +315,7 @@ def _find_original_strings(self):
         """Go to the original binary and look for the specified string constants
         to find a match. This is a (relatively) expensive operation so we only
         look at strings that we have not already matched via a STRING annotation."""
-
+        # Release builds give each de-duped string a symbol so they are easy to find and match.
         for string in self._db.get_unmatched_strings():
             addr = self.orig_bin.find_string(string.encode("latin1"))
             if addr is None:
@@ -324,6 +325,24 @@ def _find_original_strings(self):
 
             self._db.match_string(addr, string)
 
+        # Debug builds do not de-dupe the strings, so we need to find them via brute force scan.
+        # We could try to match the string addrs if there is only one in orig and recomp.
+        # When we sanitize the asm, the result is the same regardless.
+        if self.orig_bin.is_debug:
+            for addr, string in self.orig_bin.iter_string("latin1"):
+                # Arbitrary threshold of 4, but I think this is what Ghidra does too
+                if len(string) > 4 and string[0].isalnum():
+                    self._db.set_orig_symbol(
+                        addr, SymbolType.STRING, string, len(string)
+                    )
+
+        if self.recomp_bin.is_debug:
+            for addr, string in self.recomp_bin.iter_string("latin1"):
+                if len(string) > 4 and string[0].isalnum():
+                    self._db.set_recomp_symbol(
+                        addr, SymbolType.STRING, string, None, len(string)
+                    )
+
     def _find_float_const(self):
         """Add floating point constants in each binary to the database.
         We are not matching anything right now because these values are not