Code Analysis and Transformation To a High-Level Language

This paper describes methods and procedures used for code analysis and transformation. It contains basic information of a science discipline called reverse engineering and its use in information technologies. The primary objective is a construction of a generic reverse compiler or decompiler, i.e. tool that can recompile from binary form (optionally from symbolic machine code) to a high level language. This operation is highly dependent on the concrete instruction set and processor architecture. This problem is solved with description of semantic of each instruction by a special language designed for this use. The output is the high level language code and is functionally equivalent to the input. The program is therefore able to work with each instruction set and code written by it can be transformed into the chosen high level language. This proposal is implemented in practice as a part of project Lissom. Generic decompiler is completely new idea. The thesis contains entirely new techniques from theory of compilers and optimizations made by the author