ITPEC FE Morning October 2018 Question 51

Analyzing existing software to clarify its specification and structure — reverse engineering works backwards from the finished product to its design.

Normal (forward) engineering goes from specification to design to code. Reverse engineering starts from the existing program, often its source code or even the executable, and recovers design information such as module structure, data definitions and specifications. It is used to maintain poorly documented legacy systems, to check interoperability, or as the first step of re-engineering.

Answer (b)

Why not others:

• •(a) — analyzing the software and then rebuilding it entirely is re-engineering, which uses reverse engineering only as its first step
• •(c) — changing internal structure while keeping external behavior the same is refactoring
• •(d) — a tool generating source code from design information is forward engineering (automatic code generation), the opposite direction

Key rule: Tell the terms apart by direction: forward engineering goes from design to code, reverse engineering from code to design, and re-engineering does both to rebuild the system.

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