Current state of Java Decompilers

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Duncan McGregor

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Dec 8, 2011, 5:17:03 AM12/8/11
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I've just been asked to help out in a project where the source has
been, er, lost in a freak contractual accident.

JD - http://java.decompiler.free.fr/ seems to do an excellent job of
recovering quite readable source, with only the minor caveat that it
fails to recompile! Has anyone used a decompiler that they would be
able to recommend. The last discussion here was in 2005...

Cheers

Duncan

Jan Goyvaerts

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Dec 8, 2011, 5:41:19 AM12/8/11
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I'm usually using jad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAD_(JAva_Decompiler) for occasional decompilations.

Not sure it will recompile though...


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Casper Bang

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Dec 8, 2011, 6:08:37 AM12/8/11
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I usually resort to JD [http://java.decompiler.free.fr/] when I need to satisfy my curiosity. Not sure it's the best but it has worked for me in the past.

Robert Casto

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Dec 8, 2011, 10:16:23 AM12/8/11
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You might be better off looking for a "corporate" decompiler that you pay for. That way you can hit them with bug requests and get things fixed up or changed as needed. You will be doing decompiling on a massive scale it sounds like and there are bound to be problems. If you choose one that can be modified or that has support, you will probably have better results when the problems show up.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 6:08 AM, Casper Bang <caspe...@gmail.com> wrote:
I usually resort to JD [http://java.decompiler.free.fr/] when I need to satisfy my curiosity. Not sure it's the best but it has worked for me in the past.

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Duncan McGregor

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Dec 8, 2011, 12:01:23 PM12/8/11
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JAD isn't even nailed to the perch very well these days.

I don't have a large volume to chew through, although one method does
manage to nest 22 levels deep in 1300 lines!

I'd be happy to pay, but I haven't stumbled upon any promising
commercial offerings....

Robert Casto

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Dec 8, 2011, 1:36:13 PM12/8/11
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See if there is something open source available. Your "pay" would be to engineers or consultants then instead. But at least you have a chance to improve the output and resolve issues. 

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Jim McDonnell

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Dec 8, 2011, 1:38:16 PM12/8/11
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I've always sworn by the DJ Java Decomplier (http://dj-java-decompiler.en.softonic.com/).

I first downloaded it when it was free years ago.  Looks like there's a free and a paid edition now.

Cédric Beust ♔

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Dec 8, 2011, 1:44:49 PM12/8/11
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That would be my advice too. If the field of Java decompilers were vibrant and active, I wouldn't have a problem recommending commercial software but the state of decompilers seems to be pretty dire, so personally, I'd pick an open source decompiler and be ready to make a few patches if necessary.

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Duncan McGregor

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Dec 8, 2011, 7:24:20 PM12/8/11
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On Dec 8, 6:44 pm, Cédric Beust ♔ <ced...@beust.com> wrote:
> That would be my advice too. If the field of Java decompilers were vibrant
> and active, I wouldn't have a problem recommending commercial software but
> the state of decompilers seems to be pretty dire, so personally, I'd pick
> an open source decompiler and be ready to make a few patches if necessary.

Thanks, but I have seriously tight timescales and not so much source
that I can't fix it up by hand.

I wonder what happened to decompilers, and also why so many of them
seem to be written in languages other than Java?

Roland Tepp

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Dec 11, 2011, 3:54:58 AM12/11/11
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And which one would that be...?

Morten A-Gott

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Dec 12, 2011, 9:58:21 AM12/12/11
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On Dec 9, 1:24 am, Duncan McGregor <oneeyed...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I wonder what happened to decompilers, and also why so many of them
> seem to be written in languages other than Java?

mvn ... -DdownloadSources made them obsolete for a majority of open
source frameworks...

Atanas Neshkov

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Oct 27, 2013, 7:07:57 AM10/27/13
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Thank you very much for using DJ Java Decompiler
I would like to reccomend you AndroChef Java Decompiler
AndroChef Java Decompiler successfully decompiles obfuscated Java 6 and Java 7 .class and .jar files.
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