Sign up to save tools and stay up to date with the latest in AI
bg
bg
1

Using ChatGPT to reverse engineer minified JavaScript

Aug 30, 2024 - news.bensbites.com
The author of the article found an interesting-looking component while browsing the internet but struggled to understand its minified source code. They decided to use ChatGPT to explain the code, which turned out to be a JavaScript code for a React application that generates dynamic text content, presumably ASCII art. The AI broke down the code into understandable parts, explaining its different functionalities.

The author then asked ChatGPT to implement an equivalent code in TypeScript and make it human-readable. The AI provided a readable TypeScript code that the author found satisfactory. The author initially thought the AI overlooked a few implementation details, but after a user pointed out a possible copy-paste error, the author realized the AI's output was correct. The author apologized to GPT-4 for the misunderstanding.

Key takeaways:

  • The author found an interesting-looking component on the internet and wanted to understand its implementation, but the code was minified.
  • The author used ChatGPT to explain the complex and minified code, and the AI was able to break down the code into understandable parts and explain their functionalities.
  • ChatGPT was also able to convert the JavaScript code into a more readable TypeScript version, which the author found surprisingly good and readable.
  • Initially, the author thought that the AI had overlooked a few implementation details, but later discovered that the perceived errors were due to an encoding issue during copy-pasting, and the AI's output was actually correct.
View Full Article

Comments (0)

Be the first to comment!