Disassembly? Well, sort of . . .

[DrewPee]

Hello again guys - not sure if this one has popped up before.
If you have created an .exe from freebasic and then erm mislaid the source - is it possible to get it back to basic?
This is not to hack anybody else's code - I seem to have deleted something I have been working on for quite a while.

DrewPee

[rdc]

If there is a disassembler for GCC then it should work on FreeBasic. FB uses GCC to compile the programs.

[DrewPee]

Thanks RDC and also to Bikerboy!
I will have a look at these disassembly programs. 

DrewPee

[Shockwave]

That wouldn't convert it back to Freebasic though would it Rick?

(honestly I don't know).

Most of these decompilers revert if back to assembly language, even if it reverts back to freebasic I would bet my house that what you end up with is not what you started with.

[rdc]

You're right. It wouldn't convert it back to FB source. FB actually outputs assembler that is compiled by GCC so the most you could recover is the assembler source.

[Jim]

There are 'decompilers' around, for example DCC and Boomerang.  But despite decades of research they're still barely usable.
Unfotunately Drew, you're pretty stuffed.

Jim

[hellfire]

i can tell by experience that rewriting source-code from scratch usually makes it significantly better.

[DrewPee]

Thanks for all of the input guys! I think hellfire has got it right though . . . i need to start again from scratch! Not a problem.



the program do their job very well - it converts the .exe back to assembly language - cool cool shit! but . . . I wanted it back to freebasic.

As always though you guys are all here . . . very much appreciated!

Andy (Drew)