PDB to PBL tool - is there one?

[Sanjiv Das [TeamSybase]]

No can do ! If you look at the size of the PBDs compared to PBLs, you will
notice that the PBDs are much smaller - the reason being that they are not
just renamed PBLs. They have a "compiled" version of the object, without the
source code.

Hope you have backups of your PBLS ...

And if you could reverse engineer PBDs to PBLs, that would be bad news for
application vendors, wouldn't it ? You wouldn't want customers reverse
engineering that code and tweakingit and expecting support !

Sanjiv.

Hi,
Could any one point me to a tool if there exists or a method to
accomplish a PBD conversion back to PBL.
Thanks
San

[Jerry Siegel]

No such thing - the source is gone. All that's left in a PBD is the P-code,
which is proprietary and not documented.

Hi,
Could any one point me to a tool if there exists or a method to
accomplish a PBD conversion back to PBL.
Thanks
San

[unknown]

There is an app called DePB.exe cooked up by some Chinese hacker. Works
only on PB6 and 7 PBDs/EXEs, does a pretty good job, considering that it
was done by one person as a 3 month project..

[Terry Voth]

Nor the one I saw. Interesting tool.... Not quite 100%, but a far cry
from just recovering datawindows and object names. Not sure whether to
be fascinated or frightened. <g>

The version I saw does not have any viruses in it.

Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
Home of PBL Peeper, a free PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit.
Version 2.2.05 now available at the Sandbox
See the PB Troubleshooting Guide at the Sandbox
^ ^
o o
=*=

[Austin Phillips]

Where did you guys find this at? I tried to do a search on "DePB.exe" and
came back with nothing....?

Post by Terry Voth
Nor the one I saw. Interesting tool.... Not quite 100%, but a far cry
from just recovering datawindows and object names. Not sure whether to
be fascinated or frightened. <g>

The version I saw does not have any viruses in it.

Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
Home of PBL Peeper, a free PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit.
Version 2.2.05 now available at the Sandbox
See the PB Troubleshooting Guide at the Sandbox
^ ^
o o
=*=

[Alex Osin]

And this is link to the original file DePB.rar

http://secrecy.ayinfo.ha.cn/soft/219.htm

Alex Osin

See attachment DePB.zip
You have to have WinRAR 3.0 and password to open original.
HTH
Alex Osin

Post by Austin Phillips
Where did you guys find this at? I tried to do a search on "DePB.exe" and
came back with nothing....?

Post by Terry Voth
Nor the one I saw. Interesting tool.... Not quite 100%, but a far cry
from just recovering datawindows and object names. Not sure whether to
be fascinated or frightened. <g>

The version I saw does not have any viruses in it.

Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
Home of PBL Peeper, a free PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit.
Version 2.2.05 now available at the Sandbox
See the PB Troubleshooting Guide at the Sandbox
^ ^
o o
=*=

[Matthew Green]

not sure how wise that was posting a PB decompiler on a sysbase news group
:)

Matt

See attachment DePB.zip
You have to have WinRAR 3.0 and password to open original.
HTH
Alex Osin

Post by Austin Phillips
Where did you guys find this at? I tried to do a search on "DePB.exe" and
came back with nothing....?

Post by Terry Voth
Nor the one I saw. Interesting tool.... Not quite 100%, but a far cry
from just recovering datawindows and object names. Not sure whether to
be fascinated or frightened. <g>

The version I saw does not have any viruses in it.

Sequel's Sandbox: http://www.techno-kitten.com
Home of PBL Peeper, a free PowerBuilder Developer's Toolkit.
Version 2.2.05 now available at the Sandbox
See the PB Troubleshooting Guide at the Sandbox
^ ^
o o
=*=

[Gert Van der Straeten]

A full recovery seems rather impossible to me, imho pb compiling goes just in
one way (pbl to pbd). (How wonder what the DePB is capable of doing, thought)
There are some things one can do thought to get some information:

One can add a pbd to your librarylist in PB and browse the pbd up to function
and properties level. You can even do it by code using the 'ClassDefinition' and
'ScriptDefinition' native PB objects. You will find out thought that the
'Source' property of the 'ScriptDefenition' object after compilation.
I think a datawindow object should be fully recoverable:
* Add the pbd to your librarylist (static in the PBD IDE or dynamic using
SetLibraryList())
* Create a datastore
* Get the datawindows of a pbd using LibrarayDirectory
* Set the datastore.dataobject = 'd_grid_dwo_in_pbd'
* Get the syntax of the datawindow object :
datastore.Describe("DataWindow.Syntax")
* Create a new pbl if needed (LibraryCreate())
* Save the syntax in the pbl using LibraryImport()


Have fun


Gert


On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 17:11:27 -0400,
in powersoft.public.powerbuilder.general

Hi,
Could any one point me to a tool if there exists or a method to
accomplish a PBD conversion back to PBL.
Thanks
San