This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as
+published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
+License, or (at your option) any later version.
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.
+See example produced graphs for Sixth 3D - 3D engine project.
-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 can be used as a standalone commandline utility as well as
+java library. JavaInspect uses primarily Java built-in reflection to
+discover and visualize any part of Java program.
+
+
+
+JavaInspect currently has no GUI, configuration files, embedded
+scripting support, direct Maven or Ant integration. See usage to learn
+how to instuct Javainspect what to do.
+
+
+
+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 or SVG format.
-
-
-
-
2 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.
+By default on your Desktop directory when operated in library mode or
+current working directory when operated as standalone commandline
+application.
+
+
+Notes:
+
+
+
JavaInspect is developed and tested so far only on GNU/Linux.
+
+Warning: It was tested only on Debian Stretch linux.
+
+
+
+Available commandline arguments:
+
+
+-j (existing files)…
+ JAR file(s) to render.
+
+-n (mandatory, string)
+ Graph name.
+
+–debug
+ Show debug info.
+
+-k
+ Keep dot file.
+
+-h
+ Hide orphaned classes.
+
+-w (one to many strings)…
+ Whitelist glob(s).
+
+-b (one to many strings)…
+ Blacklist glob(s).
+
+-d (existingdirectory)
+ Target directory. Default is current directory.
+
+-t (options: png, svg)
+ Target image type. Default is: svg.
+
+
4.2 usage via Java API
+
+
+Requires that classes to be visualised are available in the classpath.
+
+
+
+To get JavaInspect into same classpath with your projecs I so far came
+up with 2 solutions:
+
+
+
+
Add JavaInspect library in your project as a dependency.
+
+
+
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.
+
+
+
+
+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:
+
+
+
Create graph object.
+
+
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.
+
+
+
+
Graphs easilly get very big and complex so optionally we filter
+important code using classname wildcards patterns based blacklist
+and/or whitelist.
+
+
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.
+
+
+
+
Render graph.
+
+
-
-
4 Usage example 1
-
+
+
+
4.2.1 example 1: individually picked objects
+
This example demonstrates generating of class graph from hand picked
-classes.
+classes and visualizing GraphViz itself.
+// Create graph
+final ClassGraph graph = new ClassGraph();
-// While classes and objects can be immediately passed to ClassGraph
-// constructor as arguments, it is also possible to add them one by
-// one as in the following example.
+// Add some random object to the graph. GraphViz will detect Class from
+// the object.
+graph.add(graph);
-// Add some object to the graph.
-graph.addObject(graph);
+// Also add some random class to the graph.
+graph.add(Utils.class);
-// Add some class to the graph.
-graph.addClass(Utils.class);
+// Keep intermediary GraphViz DOT file for reference.
+graph.setKeepDotFile(true);
+
+// Produce bitmap image titled "JavaInspect.png" to the user Desktop
+// directory
+graph.generateGraph("JavaInspect");
-// Produce bitmap image titled "JavaInspect.png" to the user Desktop
-// directory and keep intermediary GraphViz DOT file for reference.
-graph.generateGraph("JavaInspect", true);
+
+Note: if desired, more compact version of the above:
+
+
+
+
new ClassGraph().add(randomObject, RandomClass.class)
+ .setKeepDotFile(true).generateGraph("JavaInspect");
+
+
@@ -281,28 +518,27 @@ Result:
-
-
5 Usage example 2
-
-
-Recursively scan current directory for Java source code and attempt to
-detect class names from there to be added to the graph.
-
-
+
+
4.2.2 example 2: scan java code, apply filters
+
-
graph.addProject(".");
+
// Create graph
+final ClassGraph graph = new ClassGraph();
-// Blacklist example classes from being shown on the graph
-graph.getFilter().blacklistClassPattern(
- "eu.svjatoslav.inspector.java.structure.example.*");
+// Recursively scan current directory for Java source code and attempt
+// to detect class names from there to be added to the graph.
+graph.addProject(".");
-// do not show single classes with no relationships on the graph
+// Blacklist example classes from being shown on the graph
+graph.blacklistClassPattern("eu.svjatoslav.inspector.java.structure.example.*");
+
+// do not show single classes with no relationships on the graph
graph.hideOrphanedClasses();
-// Produce bitmap image titled "JavaInspect full project.png" to the
-// user Desktop directory.
-graph.generateGraph("JavaInspect full project");
+// Produce bitmap image titled "JavaInspect full project.png" to the
+// user Desktop directory.
+graph.generateGraph("JavaInspect full project");
@@ -315,23 +551,35 @@ Result:
-
-
6 Embedding JavaInspect in your Maven project
-
+
+
4.2.3 example 3: GraphViz embedded in another project
+Note: Because this is side project (and I have many of them) I can
+only contribute few hours per year at average. Any help is welcome. A
+LOT of cool ideas could be implemented. For intstance:
+
+
+
+
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: Orphaned class removal does not work always. There are many
+bugs and corner cases to find and fix still.
+
+
+
BUG: Code is not very readable. Document and refactor for better
+maintainability.
+
+
+
FEATURE: Create installable DEB package.
+
+
Submit it to some Debian developer for integration or become
+Debian package maintainer.
+
+
+
+
+
FEATURE: Make it modular. That is: central part, an application
+model could be standalone and serializable.
+
+
+
There could be multiple ways to acquire model:
+
+
By introspecting application via Java reflections (current mode
+of operation).
+
FEATURE: Visualize also concrete field values so it could be used as
+ultra cool runtime logging/debugging 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 inspect graphs in 3D using Sixth 3D engine.
+
+
+
FEATURE: Possibility to select classes/fields/values to be
+visualized in some graph query language. For greater flexibility in
+comparison to currently supported glob syntax.
+
+
+
FEATURE: Add option to control JavaInspect via JSON or XML config
+file. For example different graphs for given project could be
+defined once in plain text config, possibly with the aid of some
+interactive utility. Then defined graphs could be updated as part of
+project build or release process.
+
+
+
FEATURE: Configurable maven plugin to generate graphs as part of the
+project build/release process.
+
+
