Decompile c-program

[Michael Geist]

Hi,

how can I decompile a Win NT 4.0 program which source code is c or c++? The manufacterer won't give me the source code ;o(. I only wanna look ;o)

Thanks and regards
Michael

[Volker Borowski]

Hi Micheal,

most vendors explicitly state that reverse compiling is not allowed.
Second: If you do not have an executable with debug information in it, it will be a recompiled code that looks like an assembler program that is written in C, because you do not have the symbol tables available.

Big range of products available for this.
Search http://www.google.com with
with
"reverse compiler"

gets 130.000+ hits.

Open the executable in charge with a HEX-Editor to determine which compiler has been used to narrow down your search result.

Good Luck
Volker

[John Bolene]

You cannot decompile back to a higher language, it will decompile to assembler.

Decompiled C is really ugly with all the stack stuff and jumps off to library routines.

I once had to decompile a Fortran program since the source was not up to date, but I did have an older version. I had a compare program to analyze the results from my analyzing the program and making changes to the source to see where the differences were.

I eventually got it, but it would have been impossible without having an older source to start with.