C++

thaShady · 06-12-2006, 05:48 PM

If you have an executable file that was compiled, is there a way to view the source code?

jaeusm · 06-12-2006, 11:00 PM

You'll have to find a decompiler.

Chase · 06-14-2006, 03:39 PM

To undo it a decompiler is necessary as jaeusm said, !!but!! good programmers always save a ".cpp" file so they do not have to go through this hassel. Remembering to always save your source code is a good practice when programming. (Of course, if you didn't create the file then this would be not be possible unless an "open source" version was up for grabs).

::-Chase-::

developer · 06-15-2006, 12:47 PM

Can a decompiler decompile anything, including obfuscated and protected exes and dlls? I am not sure but i dont think that a decompiler will help in most case where the code has been made by a good developer and copyrighted.

TheHeadFL · 06-15-2006, 03:25 PM

A decompiler will be completely useless, for the most part, on a C++ executable. Unless, that is, you are a pro at deciphering assembly language with no semantic information.

jaeusm · 06-15-2006, 06:42 PM

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A decompiler will be completely useless, for the most part, on a C++ executable.

Not quite. A .NET assembly created with managed C++ can easily be translated back to source. I've used Spices .NET for this. Older executables (from the mid to late 90's) can be decompiled into C source code using dcc.

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Unless, that is, you are a pro at deciphering assembly language with no semantic information.

I like disasm for generating assembly from an executable. If you've spent even a small amount of time working with assembly, it's really not that hard to figure out.

TheHeadFL · 06-17-2006, 05:21 AM

The source code generated by a program like dcc will have almost no similarity to the original code. Most code is so highly optimized by the compiler that even a debugger will report incorrect line numbers, etc. In other words it bears almost no resemblance.

He didn't specify .NET. People are still making C++ executables that do not use .NET, this isn't something that is "mid to late 90s". In fact, I would wager a guess that the majority of developers who are using C++ are NOT using .NET.

What do you consider "not that hard"? Anything with a GUI is likely to have high-level calls that generate hundreds to thousands of assembly language statements and you won't have the benefit of any symbolic information.

jaeusm · 06-17-2006, 12:30 PM

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The source code generated by a program like dcc will have almost no similarity to the original code.

That depends on the complexity of the program. Besides that, of course it won't have similarity to the original "C++ source", as the OP asked. I said it produces C source.

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He didn't specify .NET.

No, but I did. I gave a specific answer to a general question. I don't see the problem.

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People are still making C++ executables that do not use .NET, this isn't something that is "mid to late 90s".

I never said it was.

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What do you consider "not that hard"?

Reading assembly. As someone who has written several thousand lines of asm for a single project, I can tell you that it's not that difficult. If you're coming from OOP in a high-level language, it may take a week or two before you begin "thinking in assembly", but once you do, it's no more difficult than reading any other source code.

TheHeadFL · 06-20-2006, 07:23 AM

I personally have no problem reading assembly language code. As far as determining the semantic meaning of a block of assembly code... without the benefit of any symbolic information... I would be surprised if you could get very far. Maybe if you knew what the code was supposed to be doing before you looked at it.... but otherwise, its a real task.

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