k..I was thinking.. there are thousands of people in the world that want source codes from other programs.. Now.. if people can make compilers to compile programs.. why cant they make "de-compilers" to do the oppisite..?? Or is their already one like that out and im just stupid Obviosuly it would be illegal.. But I dont see why it hasnt been done yet? also.. on a technical note whats the best way to use bitmaps in direct-x.. Andre Lamothes way seems really complicated.. and the LoadBitmap fucntion (well i think thats the name of it is..cant remember) looks nice and clean.. what is the bestway to load a bitmap.. is it even out of the two I mentioned? How do u load bitmaps into your games? Do u write your own function to do it? Share your talent help me out

Yes you can get de-compilers, but the problem is there are very many ways to compile a piece of code, so the de-compiled code often looks nothing like the original code. Plus, code usually does not contain all the comments and variable names of the original source.

Sure it''s possible, but the resultant source code is usually pretty unreadable by all but the most diligent people.

On the subject of bitmaps:

DirectX 7 (and probably 8 - I haven''t checked yet) contain functions to load bitmaps, other than that, the LoadBitmap is probably the best standard function to use.

goto www.cfxweb.net/mxf and download FreeTetris''s source code, that''s the bitmap loading routine i use and it works great.

Decompilation depends a lot on the language you're talking about. A number of newer languages that allow reflection (and thus have a lot of code metadata) can be decompiled to a point where you wind up with pretty good, readable source code. Usually all the class names, class member vars, etc are intact. Often you lose the names (but not the types) of method-local variables, but its not such a big deal. The languages this applies to include Java and now C#.

For C/C++, the compiler does so much mangling and optimization that its impossible to get source code that looks anything like the original. In fact, though there have been attempts to decompile .EXE's to C code, the C code that results is often a lot messier and harder to understand than an assembly language listing, so with these lower level languages you're often better off just getting a disassembly which is much more straight-forward.

Building a decompiler is not (yet...who knows with the DMCA and all that other garbage being passed these days) illegal. Though obviously it is illegal to take code from other projects (unless they are public domain, or have a liberal use licence) and include them in your own.



Edited by - gmcbay on November 19, 2000 4:48:35 PM