Curious of safety of my current EndScene/LUADoString

[cvccbum]

Hey all. I have been using an EndScene hook I wrote for some time. My bot basicly runs off full LUA functions that I inject via the EndScene hook.

My question is if everytime I do an LUADoString (which is 100s of times a second, I'd assume) I Hook, throw my LUADoString in, and unhook, is that safe? I randomize my codecave, and switch up the format of the ASM in my hook also. I'm afraid hooking and unhooking so much, and even using the LUADoString via my hook will throw up a flag. I will go at a different approach if that is the case.

[flo8464]

Sounds like you're doing some asm injection and not dll injection.

Hooking/Unhooking all the time is bad because:
1. If your hook library is not thead-safe (stopping the mainthread before modifying the code it executes), this increases the chance of a race condition and a resulting crash.
2. If your library doesn't suck it will stop the thread and doing this too often will have a great impact on performance of the game.

And no, there are no flags set by running a lua string. You might look up the function in a disassembler.

[lanman92]

Why not just hook once? That would be much simpler and more efficient.

[cvccbum]

I stop the thread when I run a few functions (Interact, etc) but with the EndScene hook I've never had it crash without suspending the main thread. I'll go ahead and try to just hook once, and see how it rolls. Thanks for the advice.

[Nikentic]

Don't unhook until you're finished with all the dostrings.

[-Ryuk-]

Hook at runtime, and Unhook when closing.

Then just use Framescript_ExcuteBuffer();

Failing that, Try using iHook. Although that doesnt randomize the codecaves :P

[cvccbum]

I decided to do 1 hook and 1 unhook. I was doing the multiple hooks because if I was debugging it, and it was to crash (my program) it would have never unhooked. I dont think that is much of an issue though now.

[lanman92]

So in an exception handler ensure that you unhook before your app closes.

[cvccbum]

Well I did it mostly for when I was to end debugging abruptly, just trying stuff out, etc. I will add one though.

[EmilyStrange]

Well I did it mostly for when I was to end debugging abruptly, just trying stuff out, etc. I will add one though.

Unfortunately, Windows 7 removed some of the ways to execute a cleanup handler easily, however, if you are using Visual Studio, you can execute your cleanup handler in the DTE even if the debugger detaches abruptly.

Always shoot for 100% RAII (hooked application is treated as a resource) and you are good to go.