When it comes to compiling and decompiling ROMs, many chefs don't have the biggest assortment of tools available. When devs need to grab some apk files and edit them, they have to extract the proper files and use a tool to decompile them. When this needs to be done over and over again, as in a properly supported ROM that isn't built from source, the task can become quite tedious. That said, there is now a tool that'll take apk files out of ROMs and decompile them all in one step.

Dubbed ROMzilla, it is comprised of two main scripts that will extract and decompile apk and jar files and then recompile them, inserting them back into the ROM when done. Developed by XDA Senior Member digitalhigh, the scripts are quite helpful for devs who maintain ROMs who only ever need to grab a few files at a time.

Users first edit two text files called apk.txt and jar.txt. These are then edited to include the path of any apk and jar files that they regularly work with. Afterward, users run ROMzilla, which extracts and decompiles all the files mentioned in the two text files. Once done, simply run the script to reverse the process, and the files will be made available to drop right back into the ROM. As digitalhigh explains:

Please keep in mind - this wasn't necessarily written for final ROM production - although it could easily be used for such. This is more for those of you who are looking for a way to quickly recompile several files - repeatedly if needed without destroying the original ROM files or removing the source code. I will work to add more features as I have time. I will eventually be including an option to zipalign, rezip, and sign the final output, as well as to decompile and recompile boot images. I just haven't gotten that far yet.

While useful now, the tool is slated to receive some pretty useful updates in the future as well.

For more information, full instructions on use, and more, check out the original thread.