Android Question Recovery Source Code

[fabio borges]

Good afternoon Erel, my name is Fabio, I'm from Brazil, I've been using B4A for about 13 years and I'm very happy to have discovered your work. I'm writing here because I'm having a very serious problem, my writer was robbed and they stole a server where I kept several B4A and B4I projects, and unfortunately my backup system wasn't working, so I only have the sources for the projects updated until May of this year. I know there are messages on the forum with this question, but I decided to ask you for help directly because I'm kind of desperate, and I would like to know if there really isn't a tool that can extract the sources in B4 through the APK, this would be crucial for me to recover my company. I count on your understanding. Thank you in advance.

 

[agraham]

The closest thing to what you need that I know about is JADX but it produces Java, not B4A code. The B4A code doesn't make it into the apk, it is transpiled to Java and lost.

GitHub - skylot/jadx: Dex to Java decompiler

Dex to Java decompiler. Contribute to skylot/jadx development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

This is the download page - for simplicity you want jadx-gui-1.5.1-with-jre-win.zip

Release 1.5.1 · skylot/jadx

Main features Core: Support restore of switch over string Adding automatic patching for semi-corrupted APKs (PR #2298) Resource decoding support new fields GUI: Pin tabs (PR #2230) Quick Tabs (P...

github.com

If you open the apk with 7-Zip and extract the classes.dex file then JADX can open it convert the DEX to Java and you can then save it with File -> Save All to get the sources as Java code. You would then have to see if you could recognise any B4A constructs from that Java.

 

[Erel]

Sorry to say, as @agraham wrote it is technically not possible to recover the B4A source code from the APK.

 

[josejad]

they stole a server where I kept several B4A and B4I projects

Maybe at some point, you uploaded some code to some cloud service (Dropbox, Google Drive, Github...) and don't remember it?

 

[aeric]

At least you still have backup up to May. It's better than nothing. Be strong and come back stronger.

 

[xiaoyao]

can

Sorry to say, as @agraham wrote it is technically not possible to recover the B4A source code from the APK.

You can get JAVA code from APK, do not know if B4A has any mixed program?Encrypting or changing JAVA code to something that humans can't read directly makes it more complex

 

[aeric]

and at least you can open the latest apk and extract the assets file such as layout, sqlite, json and image files.

 

[xiaoyao]

The best way is to write a tool to automatically back up the project directory to the mailbox or another hard disk, and back up once a day or once a week. It is best to automatically filter not to back up APK files and DEX files.

 

[Jmu5667]

Sorry to hear what happened to you. Look at using iDrive. Best of luck, at least you have May 2024.