How to extract C source code from .so file?

Ravi picture Ravi · May 9, 2011 · Viewed 54.5k times · Source

I am working on previously developed software and source code is compiled as linux shared libraries (.so) and source code is not present. Is there any tool which can extract source code from the linux shared libraries?

Thanks, Ravi

Answer

cnicutar picture cnicutar · May 9, 2011

There isn't. Once you compile your code there is no trace of it left in the binary, only machine code.

Some may mention decompilers but those don't extract the source, they analyze the executable and produce some source that should have the same effect as the original one did.