An Evaluation of Current Java Bytecode Decompilers

Decompilation of Java bytecode is the act of transforming Java bytecode to Java source code. Although easier than that of decompilation of machine code, problems still arise in Java bytecode decompilation. These include type inference of local variables and exception-handling. Since the last such evaluation (2003) several new commercial, free and open-source Java decompilers have appeared and some of the older ones have been updated. In this paper, we evaluate the currently available Java bytecode decompilers using an extension of the criteria that were used in the original study. Although there has been a slight improvement since this study, it was found that none passed all the tests, each of which were designed to target different problem areas. We give reasons for this lack of success and suggest methods by which future Java bytecode decompilers could be improved.