How can I get source code from Ada exe files?

Question

Suppose I have a "hello world” program written in Ada:

with Ada.Text_IO; -- Bibliothèque

-- Déclaration de la procédure "Hello"
procedure Hello is
begin
  -- Imprimer "Hello, world!" à l'écran
  Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line("Hello, world!");
end Hello;

When I complete the compilation process I get executable files; how can I reverse this to get back the source code?

See coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/C_CPP/comp.lang.c/2012-06/… for some general comments about decompilers. In particular, I like the comment, "You can't unscramble an egg". In theory, it's possible to decompile an EXE into Ada code, but it won't look anything like the original and won't look like any Ada an actual human would write. In practice, a Google search doesn't turn up any existing decompilers that generate Ada, although I see a book quote that states that Ada decompilers have existed at one time. — ajb

manuBriot manuBriot · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-06T21:11:58

5

votes

You can't, for any compiled programming language that I know of.

How can I get source code from Ada exe files?

1 Answers