Re: Decompiler, was (uselessly) Re:

[Chuck Young <cyoung () bbnplanet com>]

FWIW,

A couple of years ago, I bought a tool for my PC called "System Commander"
from what was then "V communications".  Under the about section was "Other
Products".  One of these products was a reverse engineering tool they
called a decompiler (I think)...wait...OK here's the web page:

http://www.v-com.com/products/products_developer.html

I don't know anything about it all, but it does look cool.

Chuck Young
GTE Internetworking

On Thu, 20 May 1999, David Gillett wrote:

> Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 11:31:25 -0700
> From: David Gillett <davidg () genmagic com>
> To: firewall-wizards () nfr net
> Subject: Decompiler, was (uselessly) Re: 
>
> On 19 May 99, at 11:23, Gilles wrote:
>
> > Does anyone here can post a simple C decompiler ?
> > If i need to decompile my /bin/login in Linux Red Hat, is it what i need ?
>
>   The consensus used to be that such a beast did not, *could* not, exist.  A 
> rudimentary grasp of compiler technology clearly supports this conclusion.
>
>   My attention was recently directed, however, to a web page of someone who 
> appears to have made a bit of progress in this area.  The thing is still 
> clearly a grad-school research project, not ready for prime time.
>   It works only on DOS executables.  It works only on executables generated 
> by a couple of compilers (perhaps specific versions!) for whom the 
> researchers have been able to code recognition of calls to run-time 
> libraries.  It decodes all 'for' loops as the equivalent 'while' loops.  Oh, 
> and while the source it produces is probably acceptable to most coompilers, 
> it may not be strictly legal.
>
>   "Simple"?  No.  To the extent that decompiling C code is AT ALL practical, 
> it will never be simple.
>
>
>
>
> David G