introduction.html revision cfead78069f3dc32998dc118ee08cab3867acea2 
1<!doctype html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
2<html>
3<head>
4<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
5<meta http-equiv="content-style-type" content="text/css">
6<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css">
7<title>ReTrace Introduction</title>
8<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
9<!--
10if (window.self==window.top)
11  window.top.location.replace("/index.html#"+window.location.pathname+window.location.hash);
12else {
13  var hash="#"+window.location.pathname.replace(window.top.location.pathname.replace("index.html", ""), "");
14  if (window.top.location.hash!=hash)
15    window.top.location.hash=hash;
16}
17//-->
18</script>
19</head>
20<body>
21
22<h2>Introduction</h2>
23
24<b>ReTrace</b> is a companion tool for <b>ProGuard</b> that 'de-obfuscates'
25stack traces.
26<p>
27When an obfuscated program throws an exception, the resulting stack trace
28typically isn't very informative. Class names and method names have been
29replaced by short meaningless strings. Source file names and line numbers are
30missing altogether. While this may be intentional, it can also be inconvenient
31when debugging problems.
32<p>
33
34<table class="diagram" align="center">
35
36<tr>
37<td rowspan="1" class="lightblock">Original code</td>
38<td             class="transparentblock">- <b>ProGuard</b> &rarr;</td>
39<td rowspan="1" class="lightblock">Obfuscated code</td>
40</tr>
41
42<tr>
43<td rowspan="3" class="transparentblock"></td>
44<td             class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
45<td             class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
46</tr>
47
48<tr>
49<td             class="whiteblock">Mapping file</td>
50<td             class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
51</tr>
52
53<tr>
54<td             class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
55<td             class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
56</tr>
57
58<tr>
59<td             class="whiteblock">Readable stack trace</td>
60<td             class="transparentblock">&larr; <b>ReTrace</b> -</td>
61<td             class="whiteblock">Obfuscated stack trace</td>
62</tr>
63
64</table>
65<p>
66ReTrace can read an obfuscated stack trace and restore it to what it would
67look like without obfuscation. The restoration is based on the mapping file
68that ProGuard can write out during obfuscation. The mapping file links the
69original class names and class member names to their obfuscated names.
70
71<hr />
72<noscript><div><a target="_top" href="/index.html" class="button">Show menu</a></div></noscript>
73<address>
74Copyright &copy; 2002-2011
75<a target="other" href="http://www.lafortune.eu/">Eric Lafortune</a>.
76</address>
77</body>
78</html>
79
80