why aren't there any decompilers taht decompile directly into C or C++

i dont' know asm and i don't want to know it, if C++ can be "compiled" into asm and then into binary, i don't understand why the process can't be reversed..

Answer:

The process can be reversed. There exist several decompilers. Look in the Borland site. Also look these two references from a quick google search:

h**p://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~csmweb/dcc.html

h**p://home.online.no/~reopsahl/files/gij!ida.txt

To decompile an .exe file compiled with an specific compiler i.e. borland c++ 5.0 you would need a specific Borland 5.0 decompiler. For a 3.0 you may need a 3.0 decompiler and so on, as the high level instructions equivalent to a given piece of code are very much compiler specific. Dissasemblers, on the other hand, are more universal.

For the kind of tinkering necessary for RE, use of decompilers provides little advantage.

1.) are there any decompilers for VC++ 6.0

2.) how do i find out what compiler was used

Hi,

I've never looked for a VC++ 6.0 decompiler, but you could check the search engines (try more than one, you'll get different results)

There are different "signatures" that each compiler leave behind for you to look for....in the case of VC++, it's easy to look for the runtime DLL unless it's appended to the exe in which case you need to check the imports. VB is the same way. Some other languages leave info in the PE header.

Hope that clears things up a bit