Decompiling

[Thaedael]

Hello,
Just a quick question for all you gentlemen on the forums. Can Adobe Flash decompile .SWF? Or can you only do it with 3rd party software? Is there a way to compile something to the point where it cannot be decompiled?

[BlueLight]

Third party could do it with older SWF.
It was either the original Lok or mario is missing that have play shape asking people to decomplile the SWF and making their own version of it.

[dirtyc101]

For what it's worth, there used to be two free/demo decompilers out there. Think the names were "Flash Decompiler Trillix" and "SoThink SWF Decompiler". Both have issues, but between the two it was enough for me to be able to pull sprites back into a new Flash file for me to edit. That was a few years ago though, so no guarantees they even exit anymore.

As far as I know, Flash will not decompile a swf file, but I believe it will import simple ones as library items.

Prevent someone from decompiling your work? Unlikely. There was a post on here maybe a year ago talking about how to secure your own work. I don't believe there was ever a solution though. Converting the .swf to an .exe may help, but a lot of folks are skittish about running an unknown .exe file. I know I am anyway. heh.

-DirtyC101

[BlueLight]

Well in theory you could make edits to how you do something so when decompiled it will have errors. Not likely to work for art work but action script is likey to work.

I believe in the early days of minecraft moding, people were having trouble because the decompilers were making ArrayList in to arrays which will cause all types of errors.

[The Illusive Man]

A little late to the game but here goes.

Flash Decompiler Trillix is still available, but the premium version costs money. You can get the free demo which lasts nearly forever (had it for 6 months and still going strong) BUT you cannot decompile in colour. everything will be greyscale.

Can download free demo here.
http://www.flash-decompiler.com/

[GoRepeat]

You can import libraries from other flash files without the need to decompile. If you are just looking to grab some sprites from a game and dont care about the actual script or game itself, you should be able to import the SWF library to your own file.

[FMPraxis]

As for protecting the swf from being decompiled, there are tools that "obfuscate" your code so that Flash will generate errors if you try to build the code once it has been decompiled. Basically what most of them do is change everything into local references to memory locations inside the flash player. I personally think this is a rather dirty thing to do since you more than likely bummed most of your code off of the internet, or at least learned it there, but since I no longer have a working decompiler, I don't really care.

As for creating projector EXE files, if I remember correctly, flash just injects the bytecode of your swf into an exe template so if you know where to look you can just pull the swf out of the exe with a hex editor.