Re: Use byte-code directly?

[Fabio Mascarenhas <fabiomasc@...>]

George Warner wrote:
> Oh I believe you 100%. But unless you expect me to post all the other 160+
> routines from this core library to the list (don't worry, won't happen) for
> you to reverse engineer I was kinda hoping for a more automated solution.

If the routines aren't that big and you're the one that wrote them in 
the first place then I think you would go pretty quickly. Decompiling 
Lua opcodes is non-trivial, this is not a stack-based machine like 
Java's, or Smalltalk's, decompiling Lua code is more like decompiling C 
code.

> Thanks for the translation thou. It was kinda interesting getting the magic
> behind the smoke and mirrors explained. Wish now I had chosen a more complex
> example. He he.

The VM isn't really complex, you see. :-) After you figure how upvalues 
and call/return work it should be a breeze, specially with your memory 
of the routines to guide you. If you're not the original author then 
partner with him on this. :-) And of course you have luac to check if 
you're doing it right (and understand the compilation will help you do 
the reverse process).

> While surfing I did run across a windoze app called LuaDC.exe. I tried
> running it on W98 and it launched a command-line window (which closed before
> I could read anything) so I then tried it with DOS where it told me it
> required windows. Anyone know of a Linux type app that will do this?

I did a google search for LuaDC and found version 0.9.20. Don't bother 
to find sources, it isn't for Lua 5. :-) Even if you found the source, 
porting it to Lua 5 would need a full rewrite; the Lua VM changed a lot 
in Lua 5 (it was stack-based before).

--
Fabio Mascarenhas