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Classyshark User Guide

ClassyShark is under current and heavy development, so remember to check this page frequently :snowflake:.

About ClassyShark

We developed this software because we needed something lighting fast and incredibly lightweight for browsing Android APKs, so that we could check right away if everything we wanted was right inside the final executable. And this is where the story begins - be sure to checkout the blogpost Intro to ClassyShark to understand the problem it solves.

Open an archive

Before we can start browsing anything, we need to open it. And this is pretty straight forward: you can do it by clicking on the folder icon in the top bar, as in this screenshot.

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Remember that ClassyShark does not stop to Android APK, but you actually see the content of .dex files, as well as .class, .jar and .aars.

Browse components

Right after ClassyShark loads your executable, you will see, in the left panel, the list of the root components of the archive. In the example, we are using the Google IO Android app, and you can notice right away that we see the AndroidManifest.xml file and the classes and res folders at the very top of the tree, as we just opened the APK file.

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By clicking on the folders, we will see the tree expand and, when we reach a leaf (that would be a Java file, in this case), by clicking on it, we would see its content on the right pane, where the ClassyShark logo is. Easy!

Now, what if we find, for instance, a class that extends Activity and we want to see what's in there? Well, we are just a double click away from knowing it! In fact, by clicking twice on a type, ClassyShark will bring on the source for that type, so that you can browse the code freely. How cool is that?

Inspect package method counts (multidex)

Raise your hand if you found yourself in the situation of counting the number of methods in your APK. We found ourselves in that critical situation while we tried to reduce the size of the project we were working on and that is why we built a method counter interface inside ClassyShark.

See the method count, that your runtime sees

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You can activate the view by simply clicking on the Methods count tab on top of the navigation tree. In a blink of an eye, you will have a browsable chart of the methods used by everything in you APK, with the possibility of navigate even further by using the same mechanisms we saw in the previous paragraph.

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Incremental Search

Why do I have to click all the navigation to my class? Well, you do not have to! ClassyShark ships with a handy search field, that you can use to filter the classes by writing a matching query, that will be automagically applied to the content of the archive and the AndroidManifest.

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You can also use the arrows on top to navigate back and forth the history of the app!

Native Code

With the release of the new Android Nougat, new code stability restrictions have been introduced, and ClassyShark is ready to welcome them!

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ClassyShark currently inspects the archive and shows this additional data:

Export

The export button, that will give you a report with all the relevant information about the archive and, on its side, you will find the history one, that will help you restoring previously loaded archives (they will persist upon application closing).

Scenarios

  1. Obfuscation
  2. Dependencies
  3. Dex Numbers
  4. Native Code

Command line

Learn more

Future development

We are constantly looking for new features to make ClassyShark a better product, if you think we should add something, open an issue on the ClassyShark repo and we'll be happy to discuss about it!