Talk:X86 Disassembly/Disassemblers and Decompilers

disassemblers for a variety of platforms and processor architectures
NEEDED: we need to prepare a list of good disassemblers for each platform. also, we should probably get disassemblers for different processor architectures too, because x86 isnt the only assembly language in the world (although it will be the major one that we consider in this wikibook) --Whiteknight 13:28, 8 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I see that a bunch of non-x86 disassemblers have recently been been added. Thank you, anonymous users and User:Adrignola.
 * It seems a bit awkward to have non-x86 stuff in a book with the title "x86 Disassembly".
 * So I expect that list to be moved to some other wikibook -- someday.
 * Until that day, X86 Disassembly/Disassemblers and Decompilers seems to be the best place at Wikibooks for that list of disassemblers.
 * --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 05:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The Question
I don't think it's reasonable to compare the original C code to the disassembled assembly code, because obviously, C is not assembly. Also, as mentioned in this page, disassembled assembly is very messy. --Wj32 10:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Radare
Radare should be added. It supports numerous architectures and operating systems, so it doesn't really fit in with any of these categories..
 * ✅. Thank you. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 05:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Udis86
I think udis86 deserves some mention (http://udis86.sourceforge.net/) as it is an x86 disassembler library with a CLI interface written for Linux.
 * ✅. Thank you. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 05:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Disassembly of 8/32 bit CPUs.
These statements need changing:

"Most CPUs are 8-bit CPUs."

"Most 32-bit CPUs use the ARM instruction set."

The first was true 20 years ago, not now. Perhaps "Most OLD CPUs are 8-bit". Or possibly something like "Most embedded processors in use today are 8-bit".

As for the second statement, this can only be true in an embedded context. Surely 32-bit x86 code dominates the landscape of programs that might want to be decompiled.

124.189.213.129 (discuss) 22:53, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You may be right -- freshly-manufactured 32-bit CPUs may have out-sold freshly-manufactured 8-bit CPUs last year (2010).
 * But before I change those statements, as suggested, let me ask:
 * May I ask how you can be so confident?
 * Do you (or anyone else) have any source that is more persuasive than an IP-address anonymous comment?
 * Do you have any idea how many 8-bit CPUs Microchip sold in 2002 or any more recent year?
 * Do you have any idea how many 32-bit CPUs ARM licensed in 2002 or any more recent year?
 * How can you know whether or not 8-bit CPUs outsold 32-bit CPUs in 2010, or (more or less equivalently) whether or not more 8-bit CPUs were manufactured in 2010 than 32-bit CPUs?


 * I have one 2002 reference that indicates that 4-bit CPUs outsold 32-bit CPUs in 2002, and 8-bit CPUs outsold 4-bit CPUs. (That includes *all* CPUs, both general-purpose and embedded)..
 * I have a more recent reference for (32-bit) ARM CPUs sold in 2005 -- about 1.6 billion.
 * I would like a comparable verifiable reference for 8-bit processors -- or, preferably, even more recent references for both.
 * However, if neither you or I or anyone else can find comparable information more recent than 2002, then I guess we are stuck with that 2002 reference. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 23:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I made the same (perhaps incorrect) assumption as 124.189.213.129 and removed the "Most CPUs are 8-bit CPUs" sentence, but replaced it after reading this discussion. I've since changed both occurrences of "most" to "many", which I think conveys the same large numbers of the CPUs in question, but avoids the conflict of which one is actually more common. Jfmantis (discuss • contribs) 03:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Jfmantis. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 16:47, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

PE Explorer is buggy
PE Explorer (1.99 V6) tends to crash while scrolling through some CRT parts of GCC-built executables. I don't know what exactly is causing the problem, just that it happens. --87.251.51.88 (discuss) 13:29, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

DCC updates
Apparently DCC is not dead despite its age, its Github page has had quite a few commits. The main developer appears to be a Boomerang contributor as well - I wonder if a merger of the two projects is somewhere on the (likely hella distant) horizon. Andy80586 (discuss • contribs) 00:17, 1 May 2015 (UTC)