Explain software reverse engineering in detail.

Reverse Engineering is also known as backward engineering, is the process of forward engineering in reverse. In this, the information is collected from the given or existing application. It takes less time than forward engineering to develop an application. In reverse engineering, the application is broken to extract knowledge or its architecture.

Steps of Software Reverse Engineering:

1. Collection Information: This step focuses on collecting all possible information (i.e., source design documents, etc.) about the software.
2. Examining the Information: The information collected in step-1 is studied so as to get familiar with the system.
3. Extracting the Structure: This step concerns identifying program structure in the form of a structure chart where each node corresponds to some routine.
4. Recording the Functionality: During this step processing details of each module of the structure, charts are recorded using structured language like decision table, etc.
5. Recording Data Flow: From the information extracted in step-3 and step-4, a set of data flow diagrams is derived to show the flow of data among the processes.
6. Recording Control Flow: The high-level control structure of the software is recorded.
7. Review Extracted Design: The design document extracted is reviewed several times to ensure consistency and correctness. It also ensures that the design represents the program.
8. Generate Documentation: Finally, in this step, the complete documentation including SRS, design document, history, overview, etc. is recorded for future use.

Reverse Engineering Tools:

Reverse engineering tools accept source code as input and produce a variety of structural, procedural, data, and behavioral design. Reverse engineering if done manually would consume a lot of time and human labor and hence must be supported by automated tools. Some of the tools are given below:

1. CIAO and CIA:  A graphical navigator for software and web repositories and a collection of Reverse Engineering tools.
2. Rigi: A visual software understanding tool.
3. Bunch: A software clustering/modularization tool.
4. GEN++: An application generator to support the development of analysis tools for the C++ language.
5. PBS: Software Bookshelf tools for extracting and visualizing the architecture of programs.