how do you “reverse engineer” something?

Question

how do you “reverse engineer” something?

In: 64

Answer 1

In order to engineer something, you combine parts or code or whatever into a finished product in order to accomplish a certain task. You start from small pieces and put them together in order to create a larger whole.

Reverse engineering works in, well, reverse. You start with a finished product or program or what have you and look at how it’s put together and at how the parts/code/whatever fit together in order to figure out how to make your own. You start from the larger whole and use it to figure how to put together the small pieces.