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Possible Duplicate:
Is it possible to reverse-engineer my iPhone application?

I am building an app for a client and want to send him .ipa's files for every build I create so he can play with the app.

I don't however want him to have access to the source code until he pays me.

Can he get the source code somehow from the ipa file?

Community
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TheLearner
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3 Answers3

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The source-code is compiled into an executable. There is no way to reverse engineer that back to your source-code. There is nothing to worry about.

bradley.ayers
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    So how does Apple know that you are using private APIs when you submit your executable to them for the store? – Jamie Apr 02 '11 at 15:31
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    @Jamie - They have an analyzer that either scans the binary for particular symbols or runs your application and monitors for any callouts to non-public parts of the frameworks. The former seems to be more likely, given that people have run into false positives where they coincidentally named a method within their application the same as a private method in one of the frameworks. – Brad Larson Apr 02 '11 at 19:11
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i just built an ad-hoc .ipa and it definitely included source code.

orion elenzil
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  • Long time has passed but still this might be really life saving for me, what do you mean it is definitely included? How could I extract it? – BenB Jun 07 '14 at 20:39
  • I grepped the .ipa for specific source-code, and there it was. However, I can no longer reproduce this. – orion elenzil Jun 12 '14 at 21:26
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It may be possible. When an .ipa is given to Apple for approval, they may send it back with details regarding a bug, or another concern, with the line number of the file and code sample from that location exposing the bug.

titanofold
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Javed
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