MobileSubstrate: MSHookFunction example

Question

I am trying to write a MobileSubstrate plugin which hooks into a C-method. I tried to edit the famous "ExampleHook", by just writing a demo MSHook and hook it in the Initialize method. This is probably too optimistic and it doesn't work. But I cannot find anywhere a simple example of a MSHookFunction(). There is barely information about this on the Internet. It might be possible I misunderstood the whole concept of MSHookFunction.

Please, can anybody help me out with a little example code? I would deeply appreciate any help.

Best regards, Marc Backes

Answer 1

I realize you have found this, but I am posting this answer to help whoever else may be needing this.

A simple example can be found at the MobileSubstrate article on the iPhone Dev Wiki, and an actual example of this in a project is at this bit of User Agent Faker.

But what is an answer without an actual explanation? Therefore, here we go!

void MSHookFunction(void* function, void* replacement, void** p_original); is the function definition for MSHookFunction, the magic function which causes your function X() to be interposed by Y(), for instance.

That is, when a program commonly would call X(), the call will be redirected to Y() instead. This is pretty much a basic explanation of function interposing.

Now, what are the parameters, and their usefulness?

• function is a function pointer to the function you want to interpose. That would be a function pointer to X(), in our quick explanation.
• replacement is a function pointer to the function you want function to be interposed with. In our quick explanation, that would be a function pointer to Y().

• p_original is a pointer to a function pointer, which from now on will point to what function used to be.

  The reason this is there is simple: If you intend to modify behavior, but not suppress it, you'll still need to call what X() used to be. But a common call to X() wouldn't work as intended, as it would end calling Y() instead of the default function.

  Therefore, you have a function pointer to call X() as if it wasn't interposed.

Now, explaining the devwiki example:

static void (*original_CFShow)(CFTypeRef obj);  // a function pointer to store the original CFShow().
void replaced_CFShow(CFTypeRef obj) {           // our replacement of CFShow().
  printf("Calling original CFShow(%p)...", obj);
  original_CFShow(obj);                         // calls the original CFShow.
  printf(" done.\n");
}
...
// hook CFShow to our own implementation.
MSHookFunction(CFShow, replaced_CFShow, &original_CFShow);
// From now on any call to CFShow will pass through replaced_CFShow first.
...
CFShow(CFSTR("test"));

Here, we:

1. Pass a pointer to CFShow, the function we want to change default behavior from as the function parameter.
2. Pass a pointer to the function we just created, replaced_CFShow as the replacement parameter. That is, whenever CFShow would be called by default, replaced_CFShow will be called instead.
3. We pass a pointer to the original_CFShow function pointer as the p_original parameter. Since we still want the things CFShow still does by itself to be done inside our replacement function, we call it.