Calculating the file offset of a entry point in a PE file

Question

In

http://en.redinskala.com/finding-the-ep/

there is information about how to find the file offset of the entry point in a exe-file.

Here I can read that

EP (File) = AddressOfEntryPoint – BaseOfCode + .text[PointerToRawData] + FileAlignment

However, when I have been calculating this myself (I used a couple of different exe files) I have came to the conclusion that

Offset of entry point in EXE file = AddressOfEntryPoint + .text[PointerToRawData] - .text[VirtualAddress]

Where AddressOfEntryPoint is fetched from IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER and the other two values from the IMAGE_SECTION_HEADER.

Is the information on that web page false? Adding FileAlignment like they do just seems wrong, it does not make sense. Or does it? A file alignment suggests that I should use modulo or something to compute a value. If BaseOfCode and FileAlignment is the same value (mostly they are), it would not disturb adding them to the calculation, but how would it make sense?

Answer 1

Correct, you don't need to use the FileAlignment value at all.

The algorithm should be something like as follow (very similar to yours):

• Get AddressOfEntryPoint from IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER.AddressOfEntryPoint (this is a VA)
• Search in which section header this VA resides (usually the 1st one, but you should really search in all section headers).
• Once you have the right section header, get its VirtualAddress and PointerToRawData fields.
• Subtract VirtualAddress from AddressOfEntryPoint: you now have a "delta"
• As the exactly same delta applies to offsets, then: add "delta" to PointerToRawData.

You simply don't need FileAlignment because the section in which the entry point lies is already aligned on that value.