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readpe

v0.85 open-source

Multiplatform command-line toolkit to analyze and work with PE (Portable Executable) binaries.

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Summary

readpe is an open-source command-line toolkit for parsing and analyzing PE (Portable Executable) binaries, licensed under GPLv2, so there is no cost to use it. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows (via Cygwin), built from source with make, which fits reverse engineers and malware analysts who need to inspect Windows binaries at the structural level rather than run them. It covers the format in depth: reading import and export table hints, resource and debug directory structures, machine type constants, and TimeDateStamp fields, including detection of reproducible-build hashes. Formerly known as pev, with libpe folded into the same repository, it has been maintained since 2012 with 60 contributors, and while it still saw 11 commits and a release in the past year, that release was almost a year ago, suggesting slow but ongoing upkeep.

Multiplatform command-line toolkit to analyze and work with PE (Portable Executable) binaries.

How readpe helps

What does this Windows binary actually import and export, and can I match those symbols even without full names?

reads the import and export table hints, printing name-index values so calls can be cross-referenced when a binary strips or obscures symbol names, with import hints shown in hexadecimal

What resources and debug information are embedded in this binary?

walks the resource and debug directory structures, labeling resource types and parsing the debug directory layout so embedded assets and symbol references surface without running the file

Is this file really a standard PE, or does it use a variant format some tools miss?

checks for alternate signatures such as PL and PX alongside the standard MZ and PE markers, and handles PE32 binaries with a zero-type optional header that other parsers might reject

Languages

Not documented

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for readpe, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

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Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail readpe puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

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Releases

2 entries

  1. August 20251
  3. May 20231

    2 entries

    1. v0.85 Aug 8, 2025 · release notes

      readpe v0.85 adds export/import hint parsing, IMAGE_DEBUG_DIRECTORY, reproducible-build hash detection, and new PE signatures.

      └──▷ GET THIS VERSION 
      $ git clone --branch v0.85 https://github.com/mentebinaria/readpe.git
# already have the repo? check out this version:
$ git checkout v0.85
      • Recognizes PL and PX signatures for PE EXE files, expanding format coverage beyond the standard MZ/PE.
      • Parses and prints hints (name indexes) from the export table for richer symbol analysis.
      • Prints hints (name indexes) from the import table in hexadecimal notation.
      • Detects and labels reproducible build hashes stored in the TimeDateStamp field.
      • Adds IMAGE_DEBUG_DIRECTORY structure definition, enabling debug directory parsing.
      +5 more show less
      • Adds IMAGE_FILE_MACHINE_TAHOE to the recognized machine type constants.
      • Adds missing RT_ resource type constants for more complete resource directory output.
      • Prints library name even when the library has no exports.
      • Extends flag descriptions for richer human-readable output.
      • Recognizes PE32 binaries with a zero type of optional header.

      10 details in Everything

    2. v0.82 May 12, 2023 · release notes

      readpe v0.82 adds machine type identification to output

      └──▷ GET THIS VERSION 
      $ git clone --branch v0.82 https://github.com/mentebinaria/readpe.git
# already have the repo? check out this version:
$ git checkout v0.82
      • readpe now includes Machine fields in its output to identify PE architecture types.

      1 detail in Everything

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in mentebinaria/readpe, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 3 −1 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 1 +0 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed not measured of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close not measured issues closed, last 12 months
    6. Open backlog 11 of 92 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 11
    3. Contributors / month 0
    4. Commits / month 0
    5. Stars 786
    Issue themes, last 12 months not measured

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

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