Using the JadClipse Decompiler Plugin on Mac

Published: 2016-08-27

Problem background

For students who have just started developing Java on a Mac, you may find that opening.jarfiles on a Mac can present many issues. Unlike on Windows where installing the JDK correctly lets you easily open a jar and browse its contents, both Mac and Windows encounter decompilation issues when viewing.classfiles inside a jar. After consulting many solutions online and considering my own workflow, I chose to use Eclipse to open jar files and install the jadclipse plugin to decompile and browse.classfiles. This approach avoids complex downloads and cracking steps and is very convenient during development. The downside is that even if you only want to open a single jar, you must launch Eclipse and add the jar to the build path of any Eclipse project. However, for Java developers, Eclipse is likely already running or about to be launched...

Solution

The tools and plugins used below can be obtained from their source sites via the links in each step.

Below I explain how to install the jadclipse plugin in Eclipse and use it (using Mac as an example; the Windows steps are similar):

1. Download the Eclipse plugin for jad from the link (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jadclipse/ ) from the source site to get the appropriate version;

2. Copy net.sf.jadclipse_3.3.0.jar into Eclipse's plugins directory;

3. Restart Eclipse;

4. Download the executable for jad (http://varaneckas.com/jad/ ), and be sure to choose the correct CPU platform for your operating system. In the cloud archive I provide, there are three versions in total:

   • linux-intel

   • mac-intel

   • win-intel

5. Next, set the path to the jad executable and the temporary output path in Eclipse;

   
6. Finally, set the File Association, i.e. the default way to open class files;

   

   

All right, now when you open.classfiles in Eclipse you should see the readable source code