EXE code

Question

harinath_2007 56 Posting Whiz

11 Years Ago

Hi folks..

Here comes the same old question ..."How to get the source code for an exe file??"
Firstly , i am bored of asking this question as i dont think it is possible..
But what made me to re-ask this question is the excitement of some file that i have. I have an executable file
which is quite useful to me.. But i want to add some more features to it inorder to make it better.
Obviously i dont have the source code and I REALLY DONT WANT TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL AGAIN.
Ofcourse , i will google about this issue and try to get some possible answers (eventhough i know that it is a tough task). But just wanted to post this issue here before I google..

PS: Please comment only if you have some really valuable suggestion ..I am a computer science graduate. And i know the possibilities. I am just checking if there are any loopholes or somebody over here knew about it...

c

Edited 11 Years Ago by harinath_2007

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Latest Post 11 Years Ago Latest Post by deceptikon

Ancient Dragon 5,243 Achieved Level 70

11 Years Ago

Firstly , i am bored of asking this question as i dont think it is possible..

It's not possible. The best you can do is get the assembly language, which isn't very useful to you. You could always ask the original author for the source code, which may or may not cost you lots of money.

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nmaillet 97 Posting Whiz in Training · Answer 1 · 2013-06-04T18:09:11+00:00

It's possible, although I have yet to see one that works well. A quick Google search turned up these:

It wouldn't happen to be .NET by chance? It would be quite simple then, with a tool like ILSpy.

Ancient Dragon 5,243 Achieved Level 70 Team Colleague Featured Poster · Answer 2 · 2013-06-04T19:16:12+00:00

I like this statement about Boomerang:

It therefore won't recreate the original source file; probably nothing like it.

So if you want the original source code then you will have to look elsewhere.

It's possible, although I have yet to see one that works well

If none of them work well then it's not possible is it?? You can't have it both ways.

deceptikon 1,790 Code Sniper Team Colleague Featured Poster · Answer 3 · 2013-06-04T19:19:35+00:00

It's possible, although I have yet to see one that works well.

Technically it's not possible due to how compilation works (even for .NET languages). However, in some cases (.NET languages for example) a decent facsimile is possible by disassembling the executable and then interpreting the disassembly to the desired language. You'll never get a result that matches the original source code, and depending on how aggressively the compiler optimized the result, what you get may be so awful that the disassembly itself is more useful.