Not all Reflection Tools (or Obfuscators) Are Created Equal

I had a client last week in Melbourne who wanted to salvage some code from an existing SharePoint 2010 implementation. As long as it wasn't obfuscated, then I thought there would be no problems at all.

Red Gate's (previously Lutz Roeder's) Reflector is designed for just a situation - and I'd recently purchased the awesome VS PRO version (which is phenomenal lets you step and debug through other people's applications!).

However, when I tried to open up the assemblies in Reflector or on ILDASM, it appeared to indeed be obfuscated - by the Smart Assembly tool from Red Gate.

Typically, the obfuscated code will be shown with an error or garbled characters. e.g. "This item is obfuscated and can not be translated." - as below:

If you try and open it in ILDASM, it throws an exception as below:

This is because the Assembly has the CompilerServices "SuppressIldasmAttribute" applied to it.

However, if you open up the assembly with the new tool JetBrains dotPeek (the makers of Resharper), then you will be able to see the source code - even of those allegedly obfuscated methods and properties.

I'm not sure whether Red Gate deliberately set a flag inside Reflector when they purchased it from Lutz Roeder - but it seems like a few shortcuts were taken with the obfuscation engine.

So be warned - not all Reflectors and not all Obfuscation methods are created equal.


DDK