I want to perform reverse engineer on a compiled and running *.apk file, but could not find the right way to do it, can anyone help me to guide.
An APK file is just a zip file of the Android application package, which includes some XML files, various resources (e.g. images for buttons/icons etc.) and the compiled Dalvik VM executable image, classes.dex. The file format for this is documented here:
http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/dex-format.html
You *can* decompile the bytecode into a fairly decent approximation of the original Java code; see the discussion here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1249973/decompiling-dex-into-java-sourcecode
An APK file is just a zip file of the Android application package, which includes some XML files, various resources (e.g. images for buttons/icons etc.) and the compiled Dalvik VM executable image, classes.dex. The file format for this is documented here:
http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/dex-format.html
You *can* decompile the bytecode into a fairly decent approximation of the original Java code; see the discussion here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1249973/decompiling-dex-into-java-sourcecode
Dear Muhammad
You can also use this tool
https://code.google.com/p/android-apktool/
Gerro
Thanks Daniel and Gerro, but i am thinking if this is a zip file, could we import it into eclipse to decompile to view source code, is eclipse support decompilation of such files.
May be this might help
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1910873
http://broodplank.net/?p=590
https://github.com/broodplank/APKtoJava
You can also use tools like Soot and Wala, which will transform Dex byte code into an intermediate representation that is Java-like. Soot can than emit Java.
Eclipse can't decompile the apk file to source code,you can unzip the apk file to a folder,try the tools Daniel and Gerro recommended then use eclipse open the file to see the source code（if the project hasn't been encrypted）.
agree with Mr. Han that you can not use Eclipse to decompile, here are some references about reverse engineering in mobile apps:
DOI: 10.1016/j.cose.2014.10.016
DOI: 10.1109/DEXA.2012.40
DOI: 10.1109/WCRE.2011.42
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