Reverse-Engineering with a Class Diagram
To reverse-engineer means to create a model from source. Reverse engineering can help you understand and navigate a large project. Java Studio Enterprise 7 analyzes all Java code in a project and generates a model from it. The reverse engineering feature enables Java source code to be reverse-engineered into a project that contains 100 percent of the code's structural information. This includes a hierarchical representation of classes, attributes, operations, and relationships.

Sorry about the lousy target term. Reverse engineering means to get the specifications or generally what the software does by means such as decompiling or disassembly. Through the process of reverse engineering, you can create software that does the same thing quicker, because things like requirements and design have already been done, and you don't have to do those yourself.


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Note added at 7 mins (2005-05-16 15:56:17 GMT)
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Charlie is right. It could be as simple as going through all of the menus, etc. and figuring out what it does. (That may take a long time.)

To reverse engineer is to start at the outcome or output of a process and work back to work out what was the input or to work out what operations were performed in the process.

In terms of software reverse engineering usually means the unraveling of file formats and the like. If competitors of Microsoft want to make a word processor that can handle and create Word files, they will have to reverse engineer the way Microsoft Word creates Word files: they have to derive the process by relating what comes out (the code of a Word file) to what went in (the original text).

In software terms, 'Reverse Engineering' is a fountain approach towards the exisiting problem.i.e. start working on the existing code/software programme to understand the design.