nygard/class-dump

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

3585 stars · 901 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

class-dump is a command-line utility that examines the Objective-C runtime information in Mach-O binaries and generates Objective-C header declarations for classes, categories, and protocols. It presents the same data as 'otool -ov' in a compact, readable format, useful for exploring closed-source frameworks and applications.

Use cases

• generate headers from an Objective-C framework binary
• inspect private APIs in AppKit or UIKit
• reverse engineer a closed-source iOS app's class interfaces
• explore plugin APIs in macOS applications
• compare class interfaces between framework releases
• dump class declarations from a Mach-O executable

When to choose

• you need readable Objective-C declarations from Mach-O binaries on macOS
• you're researching private framework APIs or app internals
• you want a faster, cleaner alternative to 'otool -ov'

When to avoid

• you're analyzing Swift-only binaries, since it targets Objective-C runtime info
• you need a maintained tool with active support or a clear license
• you're on Linux or Windows without a macOS environment

Facets

cli-tool · maturity maintenance

reverse-engineering parser developer-tools cli reverse-engineering developer-tools apple-ecosystem operating-systems cli mach-o objective-c header-generation binary-analysis ios-reversing macos

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