Extract Xcode project file from an .ipa or executable file

Question

Is there any way to extract an Xcode Project file from an .ipa (executable file)?

I tried the following:

Make a copy of the .ipa file and change .ipa to .zip. Double click on the Payload folder and open project folder. Right-click on that folder and select Show Package Contents.

Everything seems to be okay, but I want to see the code, which is now showing as executable files. Is there any tool or any way to achieve this?

Answer 1

The .ipa file contains, as you have noticed, your compiled project. So no, you can't get the Xcode project file or the source code. (Unless of course, someone deliberately copied those files in).

Answer 2

No, you can't convert a compiled executable back into source code.

An .ipa is an archive of a compiled iOS application, containing the compiled executable plus any resources (images, property lists, etc.). You can't easily translate compiled code back into the human-readable source code that produced it, and you certainly cannot get the Xcode project file that defined the build process for the app. While there are machine code disassemblers out there, they will only give you rough approximations of the original code and can lose valuable information such as the original variable names, comments, etc.