CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaant-contribjdepend
Tom Tresansky
Tom Tresansky

Reputation: 19892

Need a Java Package Dependancy Analysis Tools

Is there anyway to run a package dependency analysis using jDepend, ant contrib's verifydesign task, or any other similar tool, which uses blacklists instead of whitelists?

That is to say, I want to be far less strict (at least initially). Instead of specifying package A must only depend on B, C and K; package B must only depend on Q, W and R; etc. for every package in the system, I'd like to begin by saying: package A absolutely can't have any contact with W and Y, and anything else it does is alright by me. I could then gradually add in the full list of expected dependencies (A depends on only B, C, K) for each package over time, as things are refactored.

So does a tool exist to do this?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 347

Answers (3)

Dean Hiller
Dean Hiller

Reputation: 20192

verifydesign can be less strict in that you can define a "wad" so to speak and make it more and more strict. A link to an article that has a piece on legacy systems(which are typically violating tons of the intended design).

http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/33729/0/page/4

Upvotes: 0

Chris Chedgey - Structure101
Chris Chedgey - Structure101

Reputation: 657

You can do this with Structure101 Architecture Diagrams since the diagrams can contain a subset of your codebase. In your example, you could create 3 cells in the diagram for A, W and Y, placing W and Y above A in the diagram (dependencies can only flow downwards, or at least an upward dependency is considered a "violation" of the diagram). Placing W and Y side-by-side above A says that there should be no dependencies between W and Y. If you don't want to restrict dependencies between W and Y (yet), you can merge them into a single cell and inter-dependencies will not be checked. The rules are automatically checked and you can generate warnings and/or errors (break the build if you want). And you can gradually add to the diagram as your refactoring effort progresses...

Upvotes: 1

duffymo
duffymo

Reputation: 308743

I can do one better: you can express such things in AspectJ AOP so that it can be enforced at runtime. "AspectJ In Action" shows you how.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions