Drew T
6e0b1605c6
THE BUG. tools/cast_call_sites.py classifies a declaration line with
^([ \t]*)(extern\s+)?([A-Za-z_][\w \t\*]*?)\b([A-Za-z_]\w*)\s*\(([^;{]*)\)\s*;
Feed it a return statement and `return` is a perfectly good identifier where a type is expected:
return func_8012CB64((s32)out, -0xC0, 0x40, -0x60, 0);
^^^^^^ captured as the return TYPE, func_8012CB64 as the DECLARED NAME
so the "rewrite this decl to canonical" path REPLACED the statement with
`extern s32 func_8012CB64(s32,s32,s32,s32,s32);`, DELETING the return. In C89 a declaration after a
statement is a parse error, so the damage surfaced as a bare syntax error in the DRAFT -- reading as
the draft's fault, not the tool's. 9 of 9 staged members of family 0x801848dc lost their return.
fix: a keyword guard (a declaration's type-specifier can never begin with a statement keyword)
family_sweep --hseq --band all over 5 families: 0/39 -> 18/39 banked (only the guard changed)
⚠️ AND THE TRAP INSIDE THE FIX: the obvious R33 move is "route it through cdecl". CHECKED, and it is
WRONG -- cdecl.parse() is a DECLARATOR-GRAMMAR parser that assumes it was handed a declaration; it
reports `return func_X(...);` as declaring func_X and `if (f(a));` as declaring `if`.
Statement-vs-declaration is a question cdecl does not answer. Routing there would have been a silent
non-fix that looked principled. §134's law still holds for line-SHAPE masking; this is a different
question.
BLAST RADIUS (measured, not assumed -- R14): cast_call_sites is in gate_stage's DEFAULT pipeline
(canon_resident_calls -> cast_call_sites -> sig_unify -> harvest_verify) and has been since Phase 20.
Of 44,833 stored drafts, 318 (0.7%) carry a `return f(...);` line this mis-reads, across 67 callees
(func_8014F468 x41, func_8014F6F4 x37, func_8014F74C x32, ratan2 x25). Every one, every time it
passed the gate pipeline, lost its return and failed as PLUMBING. Part of the historical plumbing
tail is this bug.
ALSO IN THIS COMMIT
- S5 CALIBRATION WAVE (8 agents, ultracode, 1.31M tokens). Pool VERIFIED FIRST (R14 -- Fable's whale
claim was 3/4 wrong): measured 1,677 clusters / 5,795 fns / 319,755 ins at a 3.68x multiplier vs
its claimed 1,689 / 5,956 / 326,261 at 2.7x -- its numbers hold, and the multiplier is BETTER.
Result: 8/8 match_one MATCH (close=0), and 5/8 banked whole-binary -- the §52b/§61 gap is
integration, not codegen. Banked: func_801822E0 func_8017EC98 func_801851A8 func_80189A34
func_80188E10 (693 ins x1 before propagation). Not banked: func_8018B238 (FAILED),
func_8017EF54 + func_801802EC (NEAR) -- drafts kept in .run/wave-s40/ for recovery.
- 18 member-banks from the re-run sweep (the cross-address free-h_exact pool: h_exact-identical at
DIFFERENT addresses, which dedup_propagate correctly refuses since it assumes position-locking --
family_sweep is the right lane).
- cookbook §143 (this bug + the cdecl trap + the blast radius); index regenerated.
VERIFIED: make clean && make extract-all && make check-all -> 140 passed, 0 failed of 140.
Fleet 12419169 -> 12420375 instr; distinct +1,526 / +5 uniq; fn-count +23. audit-digest OK.
0 NON_MATCHING (G4).
NEW IDIOM FROM THE WAVE, not yet folded into §31 (agent was told to write only its draft): a byte
counter must be spelled `cnt + 0xff`, NOT `cnt - 1`. Both are mod-256 identical and both compile to
one addiu, but gcc-2.7.2 picks the immediate encoding from the SOURCE SPELLING (0xFFFF vs 0x00FF).
Also flagged: .run/ghidra_c/func_8017EF54.c is a stale decompile of the WRONG function.
BFM-decomp
A matching decompilation of Brave Fencer Musashi (PlayStation, SLUS-00726, USA 1998) — the first public decompilation effort for this game.
What "matching" means
The goal is C source code that, compiled with the original-era toolchain (PsyQ 4.x / GCC 2.7.2-family + ASPSX via maspsx), produces a byte-for-byte identical SLUS_007.26 and, eventually, byte-identical overlay binaries. SHA1 checksums are the ground truth; "functionally equivalent" does not count.
No ROM content
This repository contains no game assets, no disassembly output, and no ROM-derived data — only source code, build configuration, symbol names/addresses, hashes, and documentation. To build or contribute you must provide your own dump of the game disc (4-track BIN/CUE, redump layout). See .gitignore for the firewall.
Project status
Latest (Phase 19, 2026-06-20): the project builds 136 binaries byte-identical from a clean tree (the EXE + the resident engine + all 134 location overlays);
make check-all→ 136/136. Fleet byte-identical-from-source is 58.0% (function-instance-weighted; see the PhaseEnds for the byte-weighted ~30% figure and what it includes). Shared engine functions are matched once inov_SC01_077and propagated ×134 viatools/dedup_propagate.py. (The narrative below is Phase-11/12-era; a full refresh is part of the public-flip prep.)
Gen1 (foundation) complete — the matching pipeline is proven end-to-end. make extract && make build && make check rebuilds SLUS_007.26 byte-for-byte identical (SHA1 143dbb89…) from C + assembly, reproducibly across many sessions.
- Compiler pinned by evidence:
gcc-2.7.2-psx -O2 -G0 -mips1 -mcpu=3000+maspsx --aspsx-version=2.56 --expand-div. - 52 functions hand-matched to byte-identical machine code — including the LZSS streaming decompressor — with a decomp-permuter + matching-cookbook "flywheel" to accelerate the next.
- 959 PsyQ SDK functions linked byte-identical (libcd, libgs, libgte, libspu/libsnd, libgpu, libc2, libmcrd, libapi/libcard, libetc) straight from the real PsyQ 4.0 libraries instead of re-decompiling them — bringing byte-identical-from-source coverage of the EXE to ~50%.
- File-loader / overlay system reverse-engineered, with the resident engine blob + location overlays' load addresses proven byte-identical against a live PCSX-Redux RAM dump.
About half the EXE is still INCLUDE_ASM stubs (correct bytes, not yet C), and the bulk of the game lives in compressed overlays inside the .CD archives — Gen2 (overlays & engine at scale) is underway:
- The build toolchain is binary-agnostic (one parameterized pipeline builds any binary), and the always-resident engine blob rebuilds byte-for-byte from source (SHA1
8e17e02f…) — the second binary reconstructed exactly, after the EXE — and is now 86% hand-matched C (123 / 146 functions, up from 0): its scripting turned out to be compiled-MIPS state/mode dispatch, not a bytecode VM, and the save-file + sound (SQV) formats are documented. The harvest used a reusable swarm-of-agents + bit-for-bit byte-gate method (a wrong match can't be accepted) —tools/harvest_verify.py+tools/match_one.py, which carry straight into the overlay phase. - A cross-binary deduplication pipeline is live: a Ghidra-free signer fingerprints all 134 location overlays, and the report finds ~9,000 byte-identical function groups shared across binaries (~28 MB of collapsible code) — a single engine function is byte-identical in all 134 overlays. This is "one match unlocks many": each engine match will be auto-credited across the overlay fleet.
Current phase and detailed progress live in phase-ends/ (newest PhaseEnd_*.md = current state); methodology, rules, and the full roadmap are in PROJECT_CONTEXT.md; environment setup in docs/SETUP.md.
This project is developed primarily by Claude Code driving Ghidra through an MCP server; see CLAUDE.md.
License
Private repository for now. AGPL-3.0 is planned at public release, modeled on sotn-decomp. tools/brave-CUE/ is CUE's BRAVE extractor (GPL, source included) and retains its own license.