https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader
Load resources from Windows exe and dll files in a cross platform way
https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader
Last synced: 3 months ago
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Load resources from Windows exe and dll files in a cross platform way
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader
- Owner: sharkwouter
- License: zlib
- Created: 2025-02-18T17:14:01.000Z (over 1 year ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2026-03-05T13:07:47.000Z (3 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2026-03-05T13:57:19.278Z (3 months ago)
- Language: C++
- Homepage: https://sharkwouter.github.io/pe-resource-loader/
- Size: 202 KB
- Stars: 2
- Watchers: 2
- Forks: 1
- Open Issues: 1
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE.txt
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README
# PE Resource Loader
Allow you to load resources from Windows exe and dll files even outside of Windows. It automatically converts strings (PRL_TYPE_STRING), bitmaps (PRL_TYPE_BITMAP), icons (PRL_TYPE_ICON) and cursors (PRL_TYPE_CURSOR) into usable formats, other formats just give you the plain data as found in the binary.
Currently PE Resource Loader requires GCC and only works on little-endian systems.
Download:
- [Windows (x86_64)](https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader/releases/latest/download/pe-resource-loader-windows.zip)
- [MacOS (arm64)](https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader/releases/latest/download/pe-resource-loader-macos.zip)
- [Ubuntu (x86_64)](https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader/releases/latest/download/pe-resource-loader-ubuntu.zip)
- [Source](https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader/tags)
## Using the PE Resource Loader Library
Here is a basic example of how the PE Resource Loader library can be used in a program to extract a specific string from a DLL file:
```c
#include
#include
#include
int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
// Load your dll or exe file from which you want to extract strings
PeResourceLoader * loader = PeResourceLoader_Open("strings.dll");
if (!loader) {
printf("PE file failed to load\n");
return 1;
}
// In this example we load string 107 in US English and we don't save the length
char * string = (char *) PeResourceLoader_GetResource(loader, PRL_TYPE_STRING, PRL_LANG_EN_US, 107, NULL);
if (!string) {
printf("Could not find string 107\n");
return 2;
}
printf("%s\n", string);
// Don't forget to free strings that are no longer used
free(string);
// Always close the loader
PeResourceLoader_Close(loader);
return 0;
}
```
Make sure to link your code to `pe_resource_loader`. The code for the bundled pe_string_loader and pe_bitmap_loader programs contain another more complex examples.
## Using PE String Loader Program
The bundled `pe_string_loader` program is mostly there to serve as an example of how the PE Resource Loader library can be used, but it does allow getting strings from binaries and DLLs without any additional code. Here is a basic example:
```sh
./pe_string_loader my-file.dll
```
It will output a list of string for each included language. If the file contains no strings, nothing will be printed.
## Using PE Bitmap Loader Program
The bundled `pe_bitmap_loader` program is mostly there to serve as an example of how the PE Resource Loader library can be used, but it does allow getting bitmaps from binaries and DLLs without any additional code. Here is a basic example:
```sh
./pe_bitmap_loader my-file.dll
```
It will output a list of bmp files found for each included language. It will create `.bmp` files in the current working directory if it finds any. If the file contains no bitmaps, only the languages found in the binary will be printed.
## Building
Building the code can be done simply by running the following commands:
```sh
git clone https://github.com/sharkwouter/pe-resource-loader.git
cd pe-resource-loader
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
```
Installing can be done with the following command after running the ones above:
```sh
sudo make install
```
No dependencies are needed other than a C compiler. This code will only work on little endian systems for now.
Building without building the `pe_string_loader` program can be done by running the cmake command with `-DPE_STRING_LOADER=OFF`. For building without `pe_bitmap_loader` use `-DPE_BITMAP_LOADER=OFF`.
## Licensing
This project is released under the [zlib license](LICENSE.txt), which requires the license to be included in source distributions, but allows for shipping binaries without any requirements.
For conversion from utf16 to utf-8 tm_unicode.h is used from the [tm repo](https://github.com/to-miz/tm/), which is licensed under the unlicense.