How do I read the contents of stack variables in IDA?

Question

I notice that a char buffer has been allocated on the stack in a function. It goes like this:

.text:00401xxx Buffer= byte ptr -24h

I know that I can read Dwords at memory addresses by going:

Dword(0x<address>)

But, how do I do the same for stack variables? Specifically here, I'd like to be able to read the whole character buffer...

Answer 1

Yuo could use the idc IDA module, there are many interesting functions.

If you want print dword, this is correct:
Dword(0x<address>)

For memory dumping as suggest above you could use follow function:

**GetManyBytes(ea, size, use_dbg=False)<br>**
Parameters:
        ea - linear address
        size - size of buffer in normal 8-bit bytes
        use_dbg - if True, use debugger memory, otherwise just the database

An example:

GetManyBytes(0x<address>, 50, True)

You can call the function runtime, you could use also a simple script like:

from idc import GetManyBytes
from struct import unpack

def simple_dump():
    arr = []
    for i in xrange(0, 2*SIZE_TO_DUMP, 2):
        bytes = GetManyBytes(0x<address>+i,2)
        arr.append(unpack("h", bytes)[0])
    return arr

def main():
    values = simple_dump()

You can also use the IDA Hex-View windows