debug/pe: add Machine type with String method

[jamietanna]

When using the debug/pe package to look up information about binaries, I noticed that there's a subtle API difference compared to debug/macho and debug/elf.

For instance, in the debug/elf package, Machine is defined as being able to call:

f.Machine.String()

Whereas when using the debug/pe package, Machine has no such definition in the FileHeader.

It would be good to align the API of this package alongside how we do it in the other packages:

• Extract a type for Machine
• Add a String() method
• Add a GoString() method

[gopherbot]

Change https://go.dev/cl/508401 mentions this issue: debug/pe: add Machine type to align API with debug/elf and debug/macho

[jamietanna]

Hey folks, just wondering if there's anything I can do to help this along? Appreciate it's only a small proposal and there are a lot of the bigger ones to go through at the moment!

[qmuntal]

Hi @jamietanna. I'm afraid this is a backwards incompatible change, as you are changing the definition of pe.FileHeader.

[jamietanna]

That's fair - I'm sure there's a way we can make this non-breaking, while still allowing for this new metadata to be usable?

[josharian]

Could we expose a new method in debug/* to get at the Machine? (What would it be called?)

[rsc]

We can add the type, but if we can't use it anywhere in the API, is there much value?

[josharian]

Folks could type assert to the larger interface?

[rsc]

This proposal has been added to the active column of the proposals project
and will now be reviewed at the weekly proposal review meetings.
— rsc for the proposal review group