I've got me some Java to take apart (.class files).

I've toured quite a few Java decompilers out there, and most seem to have been dropped a couple of years ago, at minimum.

So far, I have been pretty discouraged at the state of affairs, but it is more the possible that I am looking in the wrong places: I've not done Java RE before, and although I "know" java (to get by), I am certainly not in the field, know the best suppliers, etc.

So who is providing the state of the art or leading edge Java decompilers now? Commercial or Free. A personal recommendation is highly desired (i.e. you used it in recent times to take something apart). I'm not looking forward to doing it at the bytecode level.

Hi,

actually it's there is no good java decompiler out. DJ Java Decompiler is in my opinion still one of the best, but far away of being good. If you just want to dump information out of classes you can code java use this library for example:

http://www.ej-technologies.com/products/jclasslib/overview.html

Its free and gives you everything you will need.

Regards,
OHPen

Thanks for the reply, OHPen. That is unfortunate, I guess it will just mean a fair bit more work, especially since I am starting from zero w.r.t. Java RE. Now to learn everything from the VM structure to calling conventions. So far, I haven't identified any really definitive resources (books, sites) for this, either. Ugh.

The utility is very useful, thanks!

http://java.decompiler.free.fr/ seems to be in active development.

Wow, reverser, I don't know how I missed that one. It seems to be working quite well, particularly for reading code. Many thanks. I might wander in here and there, and actually try to contribute back on those topics where I actually have knowledge.