fold/third_party/lief/VENDOR.md

Optional vendor: LIEF

Upstream: https://github.com/lief-project/LIEF Pinned ref: 0.17.6 Pinned commit observed: 6f3594f27056b85df51d6ad1c4ca944840ad3612 License: Apache-2.0

Fold role

Stable binary metadata parser for ELF, PE, Mach-O, and related executable formats. LIEF is a candidate replacement for r2 JSON metadata queries for sections, symbols, imports, exports, entry points, and format details.

LIEF does not replace Ghidra/SLEIGH. Ghidra remains Fold's semantic lifting lane for P-Code and SSA-style binary analysis; LIEF would only feed metadata facts and artifact structure.

Initial integration posture

• Do not link into fold-core yet.
• Fetch to third_party/lief/src with scripts/vendor/fetch_analysis_libs.sh.
• First prototype should be a read-only metadata adapter that mirrors the current r2-backed fields used by R2Backend without changing finding semantics.
• Keep r2 as fallback until LIEF covers all formats and fields needed by Fold's binary reports.

External docs

• C++ API overview: https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/cpp/index.html
• Binary abstraction parser: https://lief.re/doc/stable/api/binary_abstraction/cpp.html
• Format tutorial: https://lief.re/doc/stable/tutorials/01_play_with_formats.html

Open checks

• Compare current R2Session metadata commands against LIEF C++ APIs.
• Validate ELF, Mach-O, and PE smoke fixtures before replacing any r2 metadata path.
• Preserve per-finding backend/lane provenance: binary-r2-metadata versus binary-lief-metadata versus binary-ghidra-pcode.