Memory Chain read in Delphi only ?

[Afro-Head]

Excuse the maybe nubish question
but can i ReadProcessMemory with Delphi on chains only or can i also read Pointer's ?

Im using for learning Bot coding the Prophet Bot autoit source.
The coder here set up a pointer struct first:

Global $OFFSET_PLAYERBASE[4], $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERBASE = "PlayerBase_OffSet", $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERSTRUCT1 = "PLAYERSTRUCT1_OffSet", $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERSTRUCT2 = "PLAYERSTRUCT2_OffSet"
$OFFSET_PLAYERBASE[1] = IniRead($SOFTWARE_OFFSET_CONFIG, $CFG_OFFSET_ROOT_KEY, $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERSTRUCT1, "28")
$OFFSET_PLAYERBASE[2] = IniRead($SOFTWARE_OFFSET_CONFIG, $CFG_OFFSET_ROOT_KEY, $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERSTRUCT2, "32")
$OFFSET_PLAYERBASE[3] = IniRead($SOFTWARE_OFFSET_CONFIG, $CFG_OFFSET_ROOT_KEY, $CFG_OFFSET_PLAYERBASE, "136")

and read out the Playerbase with a single pointer read:

Global $PLAYER_DATA_BASE = _MemoryPointerRead($APP_BASE_ADDRESS, $PROCESS_INFORMATION, $OFFSET_PLAYERBASE)

In Delphi i use this ReadProcessMemory chain to get the Playerbase:

// player database
ReadProcessMemory(GameHandle, ptr(BaseAdress), @eax, 4, Wert); //BASE
ReadProcessMemory(GameHandle, ptr(eax + 28), @eax, 4, Wert);
ReadProcessMemory(GameHandle, ptr(eax + 32), @eax, 4, Wert);
ReadProcessMemory(GameHandle, ptr(eax + 136), @PLBASE, 4, Wert); //Pointer global People Base

So four lines of Code in Delphi and one Line of Code in a poorer programming Language

Anybody can enlight me please

[Interest07]

It's because you call a function in the 'poorer' language that does exactly that, read a chain of pointers.

[Sᴡoosh]

I somehow forgot to answer this, thanks interest for bumping...

This pointer chain reading stuff isn't what you want if you like speed. I did this at first also, until a wise old crazy man enlightend me. You want to read structwise, each time reading n bytes, n being the value of your highest offset. This way you can actually read, for example, complete character struct in 4 lines of code. After that, you'd simply reference offsets locally in your struct.

TL;DR : Chains suck for performance, use structs. If you really want, write a chain method that supports writing to struct at final offset.

[Interest07]

Originally Posted by Sᴡoosh

I somehow forgot to answer this, thanks interest for bumping...

This pointer chain reading stuff isn't what you want if you like speed. I did this at first also, until a wise old crazy man enlightend me. You want to read structwise, each time reading n bytes, n being the value of your highest offset. This way you can actually read, for example, complete character struct in 4 lines of code. After that, you'd simply reference offsets locally in your struct.

TL;DR : Chains suck for performance, use structs. If you really want, write a chain method that supports writing to struct at final offset.

Indeed, or in the very least when reading a lot of values from for example the player struct, only read in the player pointer once. Then read all the offsets from that pointer, instead of going through the entire chain every single time.

[Afro-Head]

Thank you two for the helpfull answers
I use now some functions to ChainReadInt, ChainReadInt32, ChainReadString...ChainWriteInt etc.

Like this one:

function ChainReadString(addr: DWORD; MaxCharCount: integer): string;
var
  BytesCountOfRead, Size: NativeUInt;
  sValue: array [0..255] of WideChar;
begin
  result := '';
  if (MaxCharCount > 0) and (addr+4 < $FFFFFFFF) then
  try
    Size := SizeOf(sValue);
    if Size > (MaxCharCount * 2) then
     Size := MaxCharCount * 2;
    ZeroMemory(@sValue[0], SizeOf(sValue));
    ReadProcessMemory(hProcess, ptr(addr), @sValue[0], Size, BytesCountOfRead);
    Result := Copy(WideCharToString(sValue), 1, MaxCharCount);
  except
    result := '';
  end;
end;

Works fine and the light shines bright

[Alikarbam]

Have a look on my source code , it's may be help you. To be more Specific on TPlayer (CPlayer.pas) class procedure.