Answer: (ii) Understanding and documenting user needs and requirements

The primary goal of requirement analysis is to understand the user's needs and document them (as a Software Requirements Specification, SRS) so that the right system is built — before any design or coding.

Why the others are wrong:

• (i) Coding the software — coding happens much later (in the construction phase), after requirements are understood.
• (iii) Testing the software — testing verifies that the built system meets requirements; it is a later phase.
• (iv) Designing the software architecture — design comes after requirements analysis and relies on it.

Requirement analysis answers "what must the system do?" — everything downstream (design, code, test) depends on this correct specification.