DEVELOPMENT NOTES ----------------- This file contains random development notes. You should have read or at least skimmed it when you intend to customize, port, extend or translate this Application. NB: This document is now out of date, but it is a starting point and should be updated soon. CONTENTS -------- - ALWAYS RTFM - ADDING FUNCTIONALITY - WHY I DID IT THIS WAY - HOW IT WORKS (probably the interesting bit) - HOW TO ADD A HANDLER (even more interesting) - BENCHMARKS - BUGS ALWAYS RTFM BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING. ----------------------------------- The POD is there for all perl modules - use it. If its not in the POD or if the POD is unclear, email me - I plan to set up a mailing list soon. ADDING FUNCTIONALITY -------------------- Did I say RTFM, well again, read the documentation before you do anything. Functionality should be added through extending the current model and/or adding abstraction, maintaining or increasing the componentisation. I have spent a long time ironing out the hacks and bugs and won't put any back in in a hurry. If you wish to add functionality then email me a patch, the source and an explaination, if you wish to request a feature also email me. I can be reached at WHY I DID IT THIS WAY --------------------- I did it this way as a cruel joke on other programmers. No not really, even if it does seem that way. I started doing this project as an afternoons hack but I got interested in it, and I wanted to make it more elegant, in the end it became a full on project and I had to rewrite from scratch using OO, modules and plenty of abstraction. There is still a long way to go in this regard to make it totally componentised so that it can be integrated into a perl script and handle different types of input and output. HOW IT WORKS ------------ - The script gets a list of files to analyse from the user, uses File::Find or globbing to generate a list based on the langauge. - The script creates an empty Diagram object (using - The script loads the appropriate handler and passes it the filehandle of each file ( or in the case of DBI a DSN ) - The handler parses each file in the list and creates a new Class object for each class or in perl package/script, or in c program/library. (using Autodia::Diagram::Class), this Class is added to the Autodia::Diagram object which holds all the objects and provides methods for accessing them. - As the file is parsed the handler populates the Class object from any functions/methods, attributes, and relationships it finds. These are added to the Class and in the case of superclasses and packages the Diagram object. (using Autodia::Diagram::Superclass, Autodia::Diagram::Component, etc) - After the files have been parsed redundancies are removed and the positions for each diagram entity (ie class, relationship, superclass) are calculated using a simple tree layout algorithm or passed through an external program such as dot or vcg dependant on command line options. - If using an external program or using a custom output function (in Autodia::Diagram where this is done) the objects are called to build a set of nodes for passing to an external application or transposing into some text to be output - If using a template the template is created and passed the Diagram object, the output file and the template file. - If using a template the template then makes calls to the Diagram Object it was passed, which provide lists of diagram entities which it uses to populate the template. HOW TO ADD A HANDLER -------------------- To add a handler to AutoDia - open and add the language name and handler name into the %handlers hash in the getHandlers function. - add patterns and regex's for finding appropriate files if not already present in the getPattern function. - examples and documentation in, also check Autodia/ which is the core of the Application. - create a class that inherits from Autodia::Handler or Autodia::Handler::Perl. You will need to have a method called _parse that is passed the filehandle and does all the diagram and class population. you can add any subroutines you need to make _parse work. - the Handler superclass does most of the work along with the diagram classes. see the Autodia::Handler::Perl parser for example code as it is heavily commented and clearly laid out (well as much as possible) BENCHMARKS --------- Some quick and dirty tests to give you an idea of how long stuff could take. Autodia pre 0.05 contains about 2000 lines of code in 7 files. Autodia 0.05 and higher contains about 2500 to 3000 lines in 11 files. Autodia 1.7 (pre-release) contains a total of 5520 lines in 18 files excluding makefiles, etc version 1.0: (intel Celeron Mendocino 466mhz running linux 2.4.6) 10 loops of took 9 wallclock secs ( 8.87 usr + 0.02 sys = 8.89 CPU) @ 1.12/s (n=10) On a K2 450, running Linux 2.2.12. AutoDial analysed itself 10 times, version 0.09: 10 loops of took 10 wallclock secs ( 9.20 usr + 0.24 sys = 9.44 CPU) version 0.08: 10 loops of took 10 wallclock secs ( 9.00 usr + 0.21 sys = 9.21 CPU) version 0.06: 10 loops of took 10 wallclock secs ( 9.32 usr + 0.23 sys = 9.55 CPU) version 0.05: 10 loops of took 11 wallclock secs ( 9.68 usr + 0.27 sys = 9.95 CPU) version 0.04: 10 loops of took 9 wallclock secs ( 8.36 usr + 0.08 sys = 8.44 CPU) version 0.02: 10 loops of took 8 wallclock secs ( 7.09 usr + 0.13 sys = 7.22 CPU) version 0.01: 10 loops of took 6 wallclock secs ( 5.94 usr + 0.09 sys = 6.03 CPU ) ###################################################################### Please submit bug reports, code, examples, test code, etc to , see for details and news.