I was halfway through developing an iOS app but have sadly lost the development files (it's a long story). I have the latest version still on my iPhone. Is there some way of recovering it or even just part of it for use in Xcode?
Thanks.
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I don't think so unless you had your source repository options turned on. Code on the iphone would be just the binary, you can't get source from that. – Alan Moore Feb 24 '12 at 00:24
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In theory you can decompile the binary, which should be backed up in your iTunes backup. It is not a simple process, and if you encrypted the binary you should maybe just give up. The result of the decompilation will be nothing like what you started with -- rather it will be a bunch of cryptic C functions that don't necessarily make sense but which will compile back to your app. You might get something usable. Assuming that you actually are able to decompile and rebuild your app, the challenge you will face is in the future -- maintaining/updating cryptic code.
So my advice is to check the possibility of local backups/checkins (as per other answers here). You might try undeleting the files from your hard drive (DON'T save any more files to your disk, just download undelete software and try it). Short of those things, you can take to heart the advice of my Comp Sci 101 professor. I quote:
Don't fret - it's always easier the second time around.
Good luck.
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1It's been a long time since my last one, but I can vividly recall at least three catastrophic code loss events in my programming life. It's always *better* the second time, too. – Greg Hewgill Feb 24 '12 at 00:36
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@Greg Hewgill That is so true. It is also good to learn the lesson of version control and offsite backups (read: github or bitbucket). – sosborn Feb 24 '12 at 00:39
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If you have Time machine enabled on your mac you may want to look in there. But other than that I don't think so.
BillyRay
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