资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

reverse engineering
     
         The process of analysing an existing
        system to identify its components and their interrelationships
        and create representations of the system in another form or at
        a higher level of abstraction.  Reverse engineering is usually
        undertaken in order to redesign the system for better
        maintainability or to produce a copy of a system without
        access to the design from which it was originally produced.
     
        For example, one might take the {executable} code of a
        computer program, run it to study how it behaved with
        different input and then attempt to write a program oneself
        which behaved identically (or better).  An {integrated
        circuit} might also be reverse engineered by an unscrupulous
        company wishing to make unlicensed copies of a popular chip.
     
        (1995-10-06)