idapython - Determine if item is code or data

Question

I need to determine whether an IDA's item is code or data. Sometimes, data resides in an executable's code section (virtual functions tables, switch tables and stuff). So in IDA, you can sometimes see this stuff in the code section:

.text:100A1424     aInternetfreepr db 'InternetFreeProxyInfoList',0
.text:100A1424                                             ; DATA XREF: .text:10038688o
.text:100A143E                     align 10h
.text:100A1440     aInternetfreeco db 'InternetFreeCookies',0 ; DATA XREF: .text:10038680o
.text:100A1454     aInternetfortez db 'InternetFortezzaCommand',0
.text:100A1454                                             ; DATA XREF: .text:10038678o

is there a method I can call to defer between code and data using only the EA?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

IDA utilizes flags for checking the properties of locations.

Looking at the API you can use GetFlags(ea) and pass its output to isCode(flags) to check if a location is flagged as being code.

You can find the exact definitions of the flags in IDC.IDC. A small excerpt:

#define isCode(F)       ((F & MS_CLS) == FF_CODE) // is code byte?
#define isData(F)       ((F & MS_CLS) == FF_DATA) // is data byte?
#define isTail(F)       ((F & MS_CLS) == FF_TAIL) // is tail byte?
#define isUnknown(F)    ((F & MS_CLS) == FF_UNK)  // is unexplored byte?
#define isHead(F)       ((F & FF_DATA) != 0)      // is start of code/data?

You can use this from Python like so:

ea = ScreenEA()
flags = GetFlags(ea)

if isData(flags):
    print("It's data!")

elif isCode(flags):
    print("It's code!")

Answer 2

Additionally, you can use Sark to get it done:

import sark

# For current line
sark.Line().is_code

# For specific line
sark.Line(ea).is_code

Note: I am the creator of Sark.