decompiling *.sl files

[Vishal Biyani]

I have some c++ library files with .sl extension. Is there any way that i can decompile them and see their source code?

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

No, you cannot. .sl is a shared library. A collection of (compiled) relocatable object files.

You can however look at the content: what is defined in it

# nm libfoo.sl

Note that .sl files are not just objects from c++. Standard C, objective C, fortran, pascal, ... all compile (using the assembler) to relocatable objects that can be collected in .sl libraries.

extracting those objects and creating c/c++ source files is called "reverse engeneering" and is in most cases strictly forbidden, though for some a temptation hard to resist. It can be very very tough to do, as compiler optimizers are able to fully blow away the original construction of the source. It also requires a lot of knowledge of both the source language and the target machine's assembly code.

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn