Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: Need to modify a legacy closed app
Date: Wed, 30 May 2018 21:19:29 -0400
Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <peniiv$aje$1@gioia.aioe.org>
References: <v9ttgdld4tiodnldauf1eid79jgdnd61pl@4ax.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: PBuS014lhzVyHjLbXmo/ZQ.user.gioia.aioe.org
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.8.0
X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.3
Content-Language: en-US
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:38304

On 5/30/2018 3:38 PM, Michael Keith wrote:
> I am tasked with modifying a legacy app which consists of an .exe file
> and several hundred .jar files. Is is launched by starting the .exe,
> which then - somehow - initialises the whole darn thing. This presents
> the first difficulty, as I have no idea what the 'main' .jar file is.
> 
> The task at hand consists of adding one button (or a clickable image
> or some such) plus the action to be eventually performed to a certain
> pane - so all I need is the name (or probably the class hierarchy) of
> this particular pane.
> 
> I am hoping for a tool / class which, when hovering over a certain gui
> element knows (and can display) this hierarchy. I could then inject
> the code to start this class in some suitable constructor and be a lot
> farther.
> 
> If anyone here knows of a way to achieve what I am after this would be
> highly appreciated.
> 
> Oh, one more thing maybe: I am not a Java guy at all (knowing about
> code injection only because I read an article about it some years ago
> - and carelessly mentioned it to my boss when discussing our problem,
> which caused it to land right in my lap), so you might consider using
> "simple language" when answering. :)

Check if you have the source code and build scripts somewhere.

Yes => change code, rebuild, test and deploy.

No =>

1) Check if you have legal right to reverse engineer and modify code.
2) Get a Java decompiler and generate source code from the Java byte code.
3) change code, rebuild, test and deploy.

Arne