[derac]

Btw, I recently did my first patches with ghidra. Is there any way to avoid jumping into a code cave by shifting all the instructions up then updating any statements referring to those memory locations? Seems like it should be simple enoigh in theory, but I didn't find an implementation on a cursory search. Could probably code up a plugin pretty easily.

[ACCount37]

It's basically re-linking the executable. Way too easy to shoot foot - miss one reference and things break in a spectacular, or, worse, subtle fashion. Which means: you definitely need to know where all the references are and what they point to.

References are under no obligation to be presented in a sensible, decompiler-friendly way.

Which is why "jump out into the patch, jump back in" is such a staple of patching. The other way is the hard way, full of pitfalls and potential issues.

[derac]

Thanks for this explanation!

[BobbyTables2]

How can you be dead certain that all references are known in Ghidra?

Just non-disassembled function or unidentified struct would ruin your plans…