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Igor’s tip of the week #40: Decompiler basics

The Hex-Rays decompiler is one of the most powerful add-ons available for IDA. While it’s quite intuitive once you get used to it, it may be non-obvious how to start using it.
As of the time of writing (May 2021), the decompiler is not included with the standard IDA Pro license; some editions of IDA Home and IDA Free include a cloud decompiler, but the offline version requires IDA Pro and must be purchased separately.
The following decompilers are currently available:
The decompiler must be used with the matching IDA: 32-bit decompilers only work with 32-bit IDA (e.g. ida.exe
) while 64-bit ones require ida64
. If you open a 32-binary in IDA64 and press F5, you’ll get a warning:
If you try to decompile a file for which you do not have a decompiler, a different error is displayed:
The decompiler can be invoked in the following ways:
Because of its origins as a standalone plugin, the decompiler’s options are not currently present in the Options menu but are accessed via Edit > Plugins > Hex-Rays Decompiler.
This dialog changes options for the current database. To change them for all future files, edit cfg/hexrays.cfg
. Instead of editing the file in IDA’s directory, you can create one with only changed options in the user directory. The available options are explained in the manual.
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