decompiler

name	decompiler
description	Get pseudocode for radare2 functions via r2xsql. Use when asked for a higher-level view of a function than raw disassembly. Runtime-gated by an installed decompiler plugin (r2ghidra / r2dec / built-in pdc).
allowed-tools	["Bash","Read"]

When to use

Pick this skill when the user wants readable pseudocode for a function (or wants to grep across pseudocode for many functions). For raw assembly use the disassembly skill.

Runtime gating

The pseudocode table is only registered if a decompiler is available. At session bootstrap r2xsql probes in this order:

probe	provided by	r2xsql command
pdg?	r2ghidra (recommended)	pdg @ <addr>
pdd?	r2dec	pdd @ <addr>
pdc?	r2 built-in	pdc @ <addr>

The first probe that succeeds wins. The pseudocode table is registered only when a decompiler is detected, so check for it:

SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = 'table' AND name = 'pseudocode';
-- one row ⇒ a decompiler is available; empty ⇒ none installed

If no decompiler is installed, SELECT … FROM pseudocode returns no such table: pseudocode. Install r2ghidra via:

r2pm -ci r2ghidra

Tables

table	columns
pseudocode	func_addr, text

Always filter by func_addr — decompiling every function in a binary on demand is prohibitively slow. The table uses filter_eq pushdown on func_addr, so a single-function query is one r2 command, not a full enumeration.

Common queries

-- pseudocode for one function
SELECT text FROM pseudocode WHERE func_addr = 0x401000;

-- pseudocode for every function whose name starts with 'aes_'
SELECT f.name, p.text
FROM funcs f
JOIN pseudocode p ON p.func_addr = f.addr
WHERE f.name LIKE 'aes_%';

-- grep for a literal across all decompiled functions (expensive!)
SELECT f.name, f.addr
FROM funcs f JOIN pseudocode p ON p.func_addr = f.addr
WHERE p.text LIKE '%memcpy%'
LIMIT 50;

Caveats

• Different decompilers produce wildly different output — never write brittle string-matching against pseudocode for downstream parsing.
• Decompilation is slow; the table doesn't cache across sessions. Reopen with --project NAME to keep the analysis warm, but the pseudocode itself is re-rendered per query.
• Some functions decompile to a comment like // Not yet implemented for thunks, leaf functions, or anything r2's analysis can't handle.