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I'm trying to view the implementation of windows functions by looking at the libraries. (kernel32.lib in this case) However, I only get machine code, which I expected, but can't make anything out of that mess. Is there a way to deconstruct a library after it has been created, or do they just stay in machine format?
There's no easy way to decipher LIB files or any binaries for that matter. If you really want to try, look up "reverse engineering".
You would probably be better off just asking questions of experienced programmers who may have discovered certain aspects of the implementations you are looking it.
Closest you really can come is to do deassemble and then look at the assembly code. There are a few programs that can take it a few steps further but the code is still fairly rough.
There is no 'code' in kernel32.lib. This is an import library. It describes for the linker, how to link with the functions in kernel32.dll.
Ok I see. I suppose theres no real way to decode dlls either.