Presents your 
JAVA E-NEWSLETTER for March 20, 2003

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RETRIEVE LOST SOURCE CODE

The reasons for losing source code are numerous: failed backups, failure
to backup, lost laptops, crashed hard drives, etc. Though most
programmers will experience this problem at some point in their careers, the good
news is regenerating the source code for a regular Java class file is 
not difficult.

The process of generating source code from class files is called
decompiling. There are many programs out there that will decompile Java 
class files, but a popular one is the Java Decompiler (JAD). JAD is a
command-line tool that you run against a class file or a set of class 
files, and it's available for most popular operating systems.
http://kpdus.tripod.com/jad.html

When you run JAD against your classes, you'll get a source file for each
class that was decompiled. Once you have the source code, you can make
changes, recompile, and back up your source code so you won't have to 
use a decompiler in the future.

Here is an example of a JAD command line:

jad Employee.class
Parsing Employee.class... Generating Employee.jad

DISCLAIMERS ABOUT JAD

Java class files are relatively easy to decompile; therefore, there's
now a market for tools that protect class files from being decompiled.

The tools that provide this protection are called obfuscators. If the
class files you're trying to decompile have been obfuscated, then JAD 
or other programs like it may not successfully generate source code for 
these classes.

Decompilers don't recreate original source code; they merely generate
equivalent source code. Source code comments never make it to the
decompiled class file, so if you lose your source code, you also lose 
all your comments.

With proper backup procedures, you may never need to retrieve lost
source code; but if you do, you may find JAD useful.

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