1 #+TITLE: JavaInspect - Utility to visualize java software
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14 - This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
15 it under the terms of the [[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html][GNU Lesser General Public License]] as
16 published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
17 License, or (at your option) any later version.
21 - Homepage: https://svjatoslav.eu
22 - Email: mailto://svjatoslav@svjatoslav.eu
23 - [[https://www.svjatoslav.eu/projects/][Other software projects hosted at svjatoslav.eu]]
26 - GitHub fork for the project:
27 https://github.com/abargnesi/javainspect
30 - [[https://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitweb/?p=javainspect.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz][Download latest snapshot in TAR GZ format]]
32 - [[https://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitweb/?p=javainspect.git;a=summary][Browse Git repository online]]
34 - Clone Git repository using command:
35 : git clone https://www2.svjatoslav.eu/git/javainspect.git
37 * Goal and operating principle
38 Goal: simplify/speed up understanding the computer program code by
39 automatically visualizing its structure.
41 [[https://www3.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth-3d/graphs/][See example produced graphs]] for [[https://www3.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth-3d/][Sixth 3D - 3D engine project]].
43 JavaInspect can be used as a [[id:acf1896a-74b4-4914-acf6-a77075e07f25][standalone commandline utility]] as well as
44 [[id:bbeeffc8-3767-440d-8d93-ec9124dd60ee][java library]]. JavaInspect uses primarily Java built-in reflection to
45 discover and visualize any part of Java program.
47 JavaInspect currently has no GUI, configuration files, embedded
48 scripting support, direct Maven or Ant integration. See [[id:2ad2889e-6c95-4662-b3f4-2c341fc74522][usage]] to learn
49 how to instuct Javainspect what to do.
51 After discovering application structure and optionally filtering out
52 unimportant parts, JavaInspect produces GraphViz dot file that
53 describes data to be visualized. Then launches [[https://graphviz.org/][GraphViz]] to generate
54 bitmap graph in PNG or SVG format.
57 + JavaInspect is developed and tested so far only on GNU/Linux.
58 + See: [[https://github.com/pahen/madge][Madge - similar tool for JavaScript]]
61 + A very simple example:
70 + [[https://www3.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth-3d/graphs/][See example produced graphs]] for [[https://www3.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth-3d/][Sixth 3D - 3D engine project]].
74 :ID: 2ad2889e-6c95-4662-b3f4-2c341fc74522
76 JavaInspect can be controlled in 2 different ways:
77 + [[id:acf1896a-74b4-4914-acf6-a77075e07f25][as standalone commandline utility]]
78 + [[id:bbeeffc8-3767-440d-8d93-ec9124dd60ee][as embedded Java library via Java API]]
80 ** usage as commandline utility
82 :ID: acf1896a-74b4-4914-acf6-a77075e07f25
84 To enable commandline support, (study and) execute script:
85 : commandline launcher/install
87 Warning: It was tested only on Debian Stretch linux.
89 Available commandline arguments:
91 -j (existing files)...
92 JAR file(s) to render.
94 -n (mandatory, string)
104 Hide orphaned classes.
106 -w (one to many strings)...
109 -b (one to many strings)...
112 -d (existingdirectory)
113 Target directory. Default is current directory.
115 -t (options: png, svg)
116 Target image type. Default is: svg.
118 ** usage via Java API
120 :ID: bbeeffc8-3767-440d-8d93-ec9124dd60ee
122 Requires that classes to be visualised are available in the classpath.
124 To get JavaInspect into same classpath with your projecs I so far came
127 1. Add JavaInspect library in your project as a dependency.
129 2. Create new Java project for the purpose visualizing your other
130 projects and include JavaInspect and your projecs binary artifacts
131 (Jar's) into new project classpath. Built binary Jar's (with no
132 source code) are sufficient because JavaInspect operates via
135 Simple Java based control/configuration code needs to be written for
136 each project. I usually put such code into directories devoted for
137 JUnit tests. Because it needs not to be compiled/embedded into final
138 product or project artifact I'm just willing to visualize.
140 Control code in general does the following:
141 1. Create graph object.
142 2. Java reflection/classloaders does not provide mechanism for
143 discovering all classes under given package. Therefore you need to
144 declare at least some classes to be added to the graph by manually
145 adding individual classes to the graph. For every class added to
146 the graph, GraphViz will recursively inspect it and add all
147 referecned classes to the graph as well.
148 3. Graphs easilly get very big and complex so optionally we filter
149 important code using classname [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)][glob]] patterns based blacklist and/or
151 4. Optionally we can tune some rendering parameters like:
152 + Possibility to remove orphaned classes (classes with no
153 references) from the graph.
154 + Specify target directory for generated visualization
155 files. (Default is current directory)
156 + Keep intermediate GraphViz dot file for later inspection.
160 *** example 1: individually picked objects
161 This example demonstrates generating of class graph from hand picked
162 classes and visualizing GraphViz itself.
167 final ClassGraph graph = new ClassGraph();
169 // Add some random object to the graph. GraphViz will detect Class from
173 // Also add some random class to the graph.
174 graph.add(Utils.class);
176 // Keep intermediary GraphViz DOT file for reference.
177 graph.setKeepDotFile(true);
179 // Produce bitmap image titled "JavaInspect.png" to the user Desktop
181 graph.generateGraph("JavaInspect");
185 Note: if desired, more compact version of the above:
187 new ClassGraph().add(randomObject, RandomClass.class)
188 .setKeepDotFile(true).generateGraph("JavaInspect");
193 - Generated DOT file: [[file:JavaInspect.dot][JavaInspect.dot]]
194 - Generated PNG image: [[file:JavaInspect.png][JavaInspect.png]]
196 *** example 2: GraphViz embedded in another project
197 1. Download project Sixth [[https://www2.svjatoslav.eu/gitweb/?p=sixth.git;a=snapshot;h=HEAD;sf=tgz][code snapshot]].
198 2. Inspect and run *DataGraph.java*.
200 *** Embedding JavaInspect in your Maven project
202 Declare JavaInspect as dependency:
207 <groupId>eu.svjatoslav</groupId>
208 <artifactId>javainspect</artifactId>
209 <version>1.7</version>
216 Add Maven repository to retrieve artifact from:
221 <id>svjatoslav.eu</id>
222 <name>Svjatoslav repository</name>
223 <url>http://www2.svjatoslav.eu/maven/</url>
230 [[http://www.graphviz.org/][GraphViz]] - shall be installed on the computer.
232 On Ubuntu/Debian use:
234 sudo apt-get install graphviz
237 Note: Because this is side project (and I have many of them) I can
238 only contribute few hours per year at average. Any help is welcome. A
239 LOT of cool ideas could be implemented. For intstance:
241 - BUG: Should not hide references if there are too many of them to
242 classes if referring classes are not visible anyway because of
243 blacklist/whitelist rules. Basically reference counting should
244 exclude not visible classes.
246 - BUG: Orphaned class removal does not work always. There are many
247 bugs and corner cases to find and fix still.
249 - BUG: Code is not very readable. Document and refactor for better
252 - FEATURE: Create installable DEB package.
253 - Submit it to some Debian developer for integration or become
254 Debian package maintainer.
256 - FEATURE: Make it modular. That is: central part, an application
257 model could be standalone and serializable.
259 - There could be multiple ways to acquire model:
260 - By introspecting application via Java reflections (current mode
262 - By parsing java source. (unfinished)
264 - There could be ways to manipulate model:
265 - Store/load/compare.
266 - Trim uninteresting parts.
267 - Highlight important parts.
269 - There could be multiple ways to render model:
270 - PNG/SVG (currently implemented)
272 - Interactive 3D visualization (TODO)
274 - FEATURE: Implement (or integrate existing java parser
275 https://javaparser.org/) to be able to produce code visualizations
276 based on source code (in addition to current reflection based
279 - FEATURE: Integarte with [[http://plantuml.com/class-diagram][PlantUML]].
281 - FEATURE: Add dark theme for generated graphs.
283 - FEATURE: Sort Class fields by alphabet.
285 - FEATURE: Visualize also concrete field values so it could be used as
286 ultra cool runtime logging/debugging framework.
288 - FEATURE: Possibility to visualize structure and data from JVM
291 - FEATURE: Possibility to attach to remote process to visualize
292 data/structure using JVM debug port and mechanism.
294 - FEATURE: Possibility to attach to JVM using JVM agent.
296 - FEATURE: Possibility to inspect graphs in 3D using [[https://www3.svjatoslav.eu/projects/sixth-3d/][Sixth 3D engine]].
298 - FEATURE: Possibility to select classes/fields/values to be
299 visualized in some graph query language. For greater flexibility in
300 comparison to currently supported glob syntax.
302 - FEATURE: Add option to control JavaInspect via JSON or XML config
303 file. For example different graphs for given project could be
304 defined once in plain text config, possibly with the aid of some
305 interactive utility. Then defined graphs could be updated as part of
306 project build or release process.
308 - FEATURE: Configurable maven plugin to generate graphs as part of the
309 project build/release process.
311 Similar or alternative solutions:
312 + http://www.class-visualizer.net/