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<title>ReTrace Introduction</title>
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
<b>ReTrace</b> is a companion tool for <b>ProGuard</b> that 'de-obfuscates'
stack traces.
<p>
When an obfuscated program throws an exception, the resulting stack trace
typically isn't very informative. Class names and method names have been
replaced by short meaningless strings. Source file names and line numbers are
missing altogether. While this may be intentional, it can also be inconvenient
when debugging problems.
<p>
<table class="diagram" align="center">
<tr>
<td rowspan="1" class="lightblock">Original code</td>
<td class="transparentblock">- <b>ProGuard</b> &rarr;</td>
<td rowspan="1" class="lightblock">Obfuscated code</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3" class="transparentblock"></td>
<td class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
<td class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="whiteblock">Mapping file</td>
<td class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
<td class="transparentblock">&darr;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="whiteblock">Readable stack trace</td>
<td class="transparentblock">&larr; <b>ReTrace</b> -</td>
<td class="whiteblock">Obfuscated stack trace</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
ReTrace can read an obfuscated stack trace and restore it to what it would
look like without obfuscation. The restoration is based on the mapping file
that ProGuard can write out during obfuscation. The mapping file links the
original class names and class member names to their obfuscated names.
<p>
<hr>
<address>
Copyright &copy; 2002-2009
<a href="http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~eric/">Eric Lafortune</a>.
</address>
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