CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#spring.net
Jonathan Beerhalter
Jonathan Beerhalter

Reputation: 7407

How can I get a graphical representation of my dependencies with Spring.NET IoC?

I'm using Spring.NET's IoC container and everything has been working just fine....until now. Somehow, in one of our previous releases, we introduced a circular dependency. Since we use setter based injection as opposed to constructor based injection, Spring.NET just kept humming along fine, but the behavior of our app changed.

Now I have a solution with a hundred or so components, and somewhere in that pile of components exists a circular dependency, which I now need to find.

Are there any tools that can take my Spring.NET config files and give me a graphical picture of my components and their dependencies?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 605

Answers (1)

Marijn
Marijn

Reputation: 10557

AFAIK there isn't such a tool available, although there is one for spring for Java. This thread on the spring.net forum discusses the issue and proposes a solution. I made a quick-and-dirty proof of concept based on Thomas Darimont's approach using QuickGraph.

For the following configuration file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<objects xmlns="http://www.springframework.net">

  <object id="a1" type="q7446068.ClassA, q7446068" >
    <property name="MyOtherA" ref="a2" />
  </object>

  <object id="a2" type="q7446068.ClassA, q7446068" >
    <property name="MyOtherA" ref="a1" />
  </object>

  <object id="a3" type="q7446068.ClassA, q7446068" />

</objects>

I was able to create the following dot file:

digraph G {
    0 [label="a1"];
    1 [label="a2"];
    2 [label="a3"];
    0 -> 1 [];
    1 -> 0 [];
}

using graphviz to make a trivial picture

Which shows the circular dependency.

The code is available as a gist.

Upvotes: 3

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