Reverse engineering: Journey from code to design

Abstract

A fundamental problem in maintaining and evolving legacy systems is to understand the subject system. Reverse engineering is the process of analyzing a subject system; first to identify the system's components and their interrelationships and second to create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of abstraction. In this paper we will discuss the process, steps, purpose, current and future directions of reverse engineering which follows the process of understanding the system through analysis of its code structure, function and operation by program comprehension. It provides the means for recapturing lost information, restructuring complex systems or transforming old systems to a new, more maintainable and better architecture. Reverse engineering software helps researchers to examine the strength of systems and identify their weaknesses with different aspects and applications of reverse engineering.