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I am new to reverse engineering and I am trying to figure out exactly what xor is doing in this little program. I know if I put any number other than 0 I get a xor eax,3 so if I put in 1 I get 2 if I input 2 I get 1 if I input 7 I get 4 I am just trying to understand why.

enter image description here

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  • Hi Landon! First impression: you are stripping relevant parts needed for further inference. Basically it's an conditional xor (3/2).
    – knx
    Commented Mar 1, 2020 at 10:08
  • @kn0x yes I am just trying to figure out what exactly xor does. Is there more info you need to answer that question? I can get the function before the jne. But basically it's just checking if the int entered by the user == 0 if it is then it goes to the xor ecx,2 if not then it does xor eax,3 on whatever number the user entered.
    – Parzi
    Commented Mar 1, 2020 at 19:40
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    if(abc) {x = x^3;printf("%d\n",x)} else {x = x ^2;printf("%d\n",x)}
    – blabb
    Commented Mar 1, 2020 at 19:59

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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In C, this function would look like this:

int fun()
{
    int a;
    // some code you haven't pasted here; probably scanf("%d", &a);...
    if (some_condition)
        a ^= 3; // xor a with 3
    else
        a ^= 2; // xor a with 2
    printf("a = %d.\n", a);
    return 0;
}

I cannot say anything more about it having only the snipped you shared with us. If there is some magic, it is contained in the part you haven't uploaded.

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  • This is very helpful. I am just trying to understand what xor does exactly. I assume its the a ^= 3 part? I am not familier with ^= could you add that part into your answer and then I think you have answered my question. Thanks!
    – Parzi
    Commented Mar 1, 2020 at 19:39
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    Yes a ^= 3 stands for a = a^3, that is a xor 3. I have updated my answer. Basically, xor with 2 changes second least significant bit to its negation, and xor with 3 changes both first and second least significant bit of a. They are just bit operations that act like sum modulo 2 on each bit. You can read more about xor here.
    – bart1e
    Commented Mar 1, 2020 at 19:43

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