#+TITLE: JavaInspect - Utility to visualize java software
-----
+- [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitweb/?p=javainspect.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz][download latest snapshot]]
+
+- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ it under the terms of version 3 of the [[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html][GNU Lesser General Public
+ License]] or later as published by the Free Software Foundation.
-- [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitweb/?p=javainspect.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz][download]]
-- [[http://svjatoslav.eu/programs.jsp][other applications hosted at svjatoslav.eu]]
- Program author:
- - Svjatoslav Agejenko
- - Homepage: http://svjatoslav.eu
- - Email: mailto://svjatoslav@svjatoslav.eu
+ - Svjatoslav Agejenko
+ - Homepage: http://svjatoslav.eu
+ - Email: mailto://svjatoslav@svjatoslav.eu
+
+- [[http://svjatoslav.eu/programs.jsp][other applications hosted at svjatoslav.eu]]
* General
Goal: simplify/speed up understanding the computer program code by
automatically visualizing its structure.
-JavaInspect is a Java library that you can embed into your Java
-project with a few lines of Maven configuration and then visualize any
-part of your Java program structure with few simple JavaInspect API
-calls at application runtime.
+JavaInspect is a Java library that primarily uses Java reflection to
+discover and visualize any part of Java program provided that
+classes to be visualised are available in the classpath.
-JavaInspect uses Java reflection to discover class relations and
-structure and produces GraphViz dot file that describes your
-application. Then launches GraphViz to generate bitmap graph in PNG
-format on your Desktop directory.
+JavaInspect currently has no GUI, configuration files, embedded
+scripting support, direct Maven or Ant integration. The only way to
+instuct Javainspect what to do is by using its Java API.
-* Current status
-This is simple utility, quickly written. Tested on GNU Linux (can be
-relatively simply ported to other operating systems too). So far I
-used it for my own needs. There might be bugs and missing
-features. Feedback and code contributions are welcome.
+To get JavaInspect into same classpath with your projecs I so far came
+up with 2 solutions:
-* Example graphs
-Example visualization of [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitbrowse/sixth/doc/][Sixth]] project: [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth/codegraphs/][architecture graphs]].
+1. Add JavaInspect library in your project as a dependency.
+2. Create new Java project for the purpose visualizing your other
+ projects and include JavaInspect and your projecs binary artifacts
+ (Jar's) into new project classpath. Built binary Jar's (with no
+ source code) are sufficient because JavaInspect operates via
+ reflection.
-A very simple example:
+After discovering application structure and optionally filtering out
+unimportant parts, JavaInspect produces GraphViz dot file that
+describes data to be visualized. Then launches GraphViz to generate
+bitmap graph in PNG format. By default on your Desktop directory.
-[[file:example.png][file:example.resized.png]]
+Note: GraphViz is developed and tested so far only on GNU Linux.
-
-Graph legend:
-
-file:legend.png
-
-* Usage example 1
+* Example graphs
++ A very simple example:
+
+ [[file:example.png][file:example.resized.png]]
+
+ Graph legend:
+
+ file:legend.png
+
++ Example visualization of [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitbrowse/sixth/doc/][Sixth]] project: [[http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth/codegraphs/][architecture graphs]].
+
+* Usage
+Currently the only way to control JavaInspect is by using Java
+API. Simple Java based control/configuration code needs to be written
+for each project. I usually put such code into directories devoted for
+JUnit tests. Because it needs not to be compiled/embedded into final
+product or project artifact I'm just willing to visualize.
+
+Control code in general does the following:
+1. Create graph object.
+2. Java reflection/classloaders does not provide mechanism for
+ discovering all classes under given package. Therefore you need to
+ declare at least some classes to be added to the graph by:
+ + Manually adding individual classes to the graph.
+ + and/or: Let GraphViz recursively scan and parse specified
+ directories with Java source code files to discover class names.
+ + For every class added to the graph, GraphViz will recursively
+ inspect it and add all referecned classes to the graph as well.
+3. Graphs easilly get very big and complex so optionally we filter
+ important code using classname wildcards patterns based blacklist
+ and/or whitelist.
+4. Optionally we can tune some rendering parameters like:
+ + Possibility to remove orphaned classes (classes with no
+ references) from the graph.
+ + Specify target directory for generated visualization
+ files. (Default is user desktop directory)
+ + Keep intermediate GraphViz dot file for later inspection.
+5. Render graph.
+
+
+** example 1
This example demonstrates generating of class graph from hand picked
classes.
- Generated DOT file: [[file:JavaInspect.dot][JavaInspect.dot]]
- Generated PNG image: [[file:JavaInspect.png][JavaInspect.png]]
-* Usage example 2
+** example 2
Recursively scan current directory for Java source code and attempt to
detect class names from there to be added to the graph.
On Ubuntu/Debian use:
: sudo apt-get install graphviz
+* TODO
+- BUG: Should not hide references if there are too many of them to
+ classes if referring classes are not visible anyway because of
+ blacklist/whitelist rules. Basically reference counting should
+ exclude not visible classes.
+- BUG: Current code is quite messy (because of lack of time) things
+ were implemented ad-hoc. Needs cleanup/refactoring for better
+ readability.
+- FEATURE: add dark theme
+- FEATURE: sort Class fields by alphabet
+- FEATURE: visualize also concrete field values so it could be used as
+ ultra cool runtime logging framework
+- FEATURE: possibility to visualize structure and data from JVM
+ snapshot
+- FEATURE: possibility to attach to remote process to visualize
+ data/structure using JVM debug port and mechanism.
+- FEATURE: possibility to attach to JVM using JVM agent
+- FEATURE: possibility to script javainspect behavior
+- FEATURE: possibility to select classes/fields/values to be
+ visualized in SQL like syntax
+- FEATURE: configurable maven plugin to generate graphs as part of the
+ project build/release process
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