A .net disassembler/decompiler

Question

I am looking for a disassembler or better, a decompiler for .net. The situation is that the source code for an assembly written by one of my predecessors is lost and I'd like to take a look to see what it's doing.

I know that ildasm comes with the Visual Studio installation so I can get at the MSIL, but I was hoping there was a program clever enough to work back to the C# code (or best approximation).

Are there any tools for this out there?

(If not, I suppose it'll be a good excuse for me to sit down and start to learn MSIL)

score 55 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 19 '13 at 04:50

55

Now that Red Gate have started charging for the .NET Reflector tool you might want to check out these free alternatives instead...

Telerik JustDecompile

JetBrains dotPeek

(Open Source) ILSpy

edited Jun 19 '13 at 04:50

Scott Chamberlain

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answered May 13 '11 at 04:46

Phil Wright

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Just tried the ILSpy beta, and it's as good as Reflector for me. Minus the licensing hassle. – David Schmitt Jul 15 '11 at 13:23
dotPeek is an eval copy -- looks almost as good as Reflector but seems to run a little more slowly. ILSpy does the trick for me, though its interface isn't quite as slick -- member sorting and treatment of generics both leave a little to be desired, but good enough, especially at the price! – yoyo Jul 19 '11 at 18:00
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As of 2012 dotPeek is now fully free and no longer a eval trial. – Scott Chamberlain Jun 19 '13 at 04:48

score 40 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:05

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Have you looked at Reflector?

http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/

answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:05

overstood

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Although I would like to agree with annakata, clearly s/he, is wrong. Reflector = double awesome! :) – Russ Feb 23 '09 at 21:32
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Red gate didn't originally write Reflector. The only other tool I have used from them (SQL Intellisense for SQL Server 2005) was slow. :) – mmcdole May 29 '09 at 03:41
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Not free anymore – Tarion Mar 17 '12 at 13:50

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:18

7

Reflector is the way to go, but if you can't use that for some reason, Microsoft ships a disassembler called ILDasm with the framework.

A good source for MSIL knowledge is the book Expert .NET 2.0 IL Assembler by Serge Lidin.

answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:18

Brian Rasmussen

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:04

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.NET Reflector is the usual tool for this.

answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:04

mqp

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 05 '12 at 18:57

Ok,

I tried on a project. ILSpy

Telerik JustDecompile

.NET Reflector Demo

All can create Visual C# project. The generated code did not compile for JustDecompile and Reflector. In one case, ILSpy made a code that compiled (just references had to be set) The mistakes IlSpy did not look as compiicated as one found in others. All generated code can be fixed if one know C# well enough.

An interesting direction can be used to decompile code using both JustDecompile and Ilspy and merge the codes that are correct because these decompilers (and third as well) seem to make different mistakes.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:05

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Reflector.

answered Feb 23 '09 at 19:05

BFree

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A .net disassembler/decompiler

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