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Looking for a Java decompiler
New open source Java decompiler
I have a couple of .jar games on my disk. I want to decompile the bytecode back to the readable .java format.
What are my options? Google wasn't very helpful, throwing old sites at me with broken download links.
I just want to learn - I played the game lots of times so I know what it does, now I want to know how it does it.
EDIT: Thanks to everyone who replied, the post stays so that others can use. I decided to use jd-gui, but it's good to know many Java IDEs have plugins to do this too (I use Netbeans and I couldn't find a decompiler plugin for it)
JAD is one of the best Java Decompiler today. This is one brilliant piece of software. Nevertheless, the last JDK supported by JAD 1.5.8 (Apr 14, 2001) is JDK 1.3.
DJ Java Decompiler, JadClipse, Cavaj and JarInspector are powered by Jad. The last version of Decafe Pro has been released on 2002-01-03.
These viewers can not display Java 5 sources.
So, I use JD-GUI : logic, I'm the author :)
Procyon is a new open source decompiler that already beats JD-GUI in most cases. It's written in Java and comes in a self-contained jar. It is actively developed by StackOverflow's own Mike Strobel.