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Reverse

Reverse engineering involves analyzing a product to understand how it works in order to learn the ideas and technology used in its development. It can be done at many levels to recover lost information, assist with maintenance, facilitate migration to new platforms, and enable software reuse. Reverse engineering tasks include program understanding, redocumentation, design recovery, and identifying reusable components. Different approaches to reverse engineering include restructuring, reverse engineering, and reengineering. Various tools exist to help with reverse engineering tasks like analysis, browsing, object servers, and task-oriented tools.

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Mehul Shinde
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48 views

Reverse

Reverse engineering involves analyzing a product to understand how it works in order to learn the ideas and technology used in its development. It can be done at many levels to recover lost information, assist with maintenance, facilitate migration to new platforms, and enable software reuse. Reverse engineering tasks include program understanding, redocumentation, design recovery, and identifying reusable components. Different approaches to reverse engineering include restructuring, reverse engineering, and reengineering. Various tools exist to help with reverse engineering tasks like analysis, browsing, object servers, and task-oriented tools.

Uploaded by

Mehul Shinde
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reverse Engineering

Shaochun Xu

Computer Science
University of Windsor
Contents
 What is Reverse Engineering (RE)?
 Why do we need Reverse Engineering?
 Scope and Tasks of Reverse Engineering
 Different Approaches
 RE tools
 Conclusions
What is Reverse
Engineering ?
 You have an unexpected case:
• You finished one course project using Java
• Your program runs OK
• But, by accident, you delete the java file
• How to hand in your project?
What is Reverse
Engineering ?
 You have an unexpected case:
• You finished one course project using Java
• Your program runs OK
• But, by accident, you delete the java file
• How to hand in your project?

 Reverse Engineering
What is Reverse
Engineering ?

Waterfall Model of software development

Requirement
analysis

design

Implementation

Testing and
Maintenance
What is Reverse
Engineering ?

Forward Engineering

Requirements

Design

Source Code

Behavior
What is Reverse
Engineering ?

Forward Engineering Reverse Engineering

Requirements

Design

Source Code

Behavior
What is Reverse
Engineering ?
Abstraction System

Reverse Engineering Forward Engineering


Abstraction Re-Implementation

Old system New System


What is Reverse Engineering?
 RE encompasses any activity that is done to
determine how a product works, to learn the
ideas and technology that were used in
developing that product.
 RE can be done at many levels
 RE generally belongs to Software
Maintenance
The Early Days of RE
 Law of Software Revolution (Lehman, 1980)
 Fundamental strategies for program comprehension
(Brooks, 1983)
 Taxonomy of Reverse Engineering
(Chikofsky&Cross, 1990)
 WCRE (Working Conference on R.E., 1990)
 IWPC (Int. Workshop on Program Comprehension)
Why do we need RE ?

 Recovery of lost information


• providing proper system documentation
 Assisting with maintenance
• identification of side effects and anomalies
 Migration to another hw/sw platform
 Facilitating software reuse
Why do we need RE ?

 Benefits
• maintenance cost savings
• quality improvements
• competitive advantages
• software reuse facilitation
Difficulties of Reverse
Engineering
 Gap between problem
/solution domain
 Gap between concrete
and abstract
 Gap between coherency/disintegration
 Gap between hierarchical/associational
Scope and Task of Reverse
Engineering
 program understanding
Problem/Application
domain

Mapping

Program/Implemen.
domain
Scope and Task of Reverse
Engineering
 Redocumentation and/or document generation
 Recovery of design approach and design
details at any level of abstraction
 Identifying reusable components and
components that need restructuring
 Recovering business rules
 Understanding high-level system description.
Discovery of Abstraction
 Discovery of abstraction in large system
• maintenance purpose
• evolution purpose
• reengineering purpose
Levels of abstractions
 Application
• Application concepts, business rule, policies
 Function
• Logical and functional specification, non-functional requirement
 Structure
• Data and control flow, dependency graphs
• Structure and subsystem charts
• Architectures
 Implementation
• Symbol tables, source text
Different Approaches
 Restructuring
• Transformation from one representation to
another at the same level,

Requirements

Design

Source code

Behavior
Different Approaches
 Reverse Engineering
• Design Recovery
– reproduce all the info for understanding the system
• Re-documentation
– provide different views of the system
 Re-Engineering
• first phase --understanding the system
• second phase--forward engineering
Different Approaches
Abstraction System

Reverse Engineering Forward Engineering


Abstraction Re-Implementation

Old system New System


Reverse Engineering Tools
 Analysis Tools
 Browsers
 Object Server
 Task Oriented Tools
Example--Java Decompiler
 How to recover bytecode from .class file under
Unix/Win with JDK?
% javap -c <filename>
% javap -help (to see the options)

 Java Decompilers
• ”ClassCracker” http://www.pcug.org.au/~mayon/
• “DeCafe Pro" from DeCafe, France at http://decafe.hypermart.net/index.htm
• “SourceAgain" from Ahpah corp at http://www.ahpah.com
Example--Java Decompiler
 ClassCracker 2 Interface
Example--Java Decompiler
 Components of ClassCracker 2
• Java decompiler
– retrieves Java source code from Java class files
• Java disassembler
– produces Java Assembly Code
• A Java class file viewer
– displays Java class file structures.
Example--Java Decompiler
 Features of ClassCracker 2
• User visual interface.
• Can decompile class files within zip or jar files.
• Conversion mode (JAVA, JASM or JDUMP) is
selectable
• A Batc Mode allows multiple class files to be
decompiled simultaneously
• more…...
Example--Java Decompiler
 ClassCracker 2 System Requirements
• All platform (Window/Linus/Unix)
• JDK /JRE

 Do not believe it?


• From myClass_origin.class ==>myClass.java
• % javac myClass.java (==>myClass.class)
• % diff myClass.class myClass_origin.class
Example--Java Decompiler
 ClassCracker 2.0--want to try it?
• Free download at
http://www.pcug.org.au/~mayon/classcracker/ccgetdemo.htm
l
• Only first three methods are decoded.

 Bridge 1.0---Free
• http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bridge/8617/
jad.html
Conclusions
 Reverse Engineering is a new research area
among software maintenance
 RE includes activities of understanding the
system and recovery info from system
 Program understanding is the most important
subset of Reverse Engineering
 Discovery of abstraction is key issue
Questions ?

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