NAME

Devel::Diagram - Discover the classes of an arbitrary suite of Perl modules

SYNOPSIS

    use Devel::Diagram;

    # Discover classes of a package anchored by a single Perl module.
    #
    $diagram = new Devel::Diagram('CGI');

    # Discover classes of a package anchored by a collection of modules in a folder.
    #
    use Devel::Diagram;
    $diagram = new Devel::Diagram('HTML/');

    # Render the result in your desired format.
    #
    print $diagram->Render('UXF20');

    # Render the result, then transform it via XSL.
    #
    print $diagram->Render('UXF20', 'xsl:uxf20toHtml');

DESCRIPTION

Devel::Diagram scans the given Perl modules attempting to discover the class structure. It produces a hash table that can be converted to XML (or other formats) via Render().

An XSL stylesheet is included that converts the XML class diagram into HTML.

See eg/Diagram.pl for a full example of use.

METHODS

The few methods you need to activate Devel::Diagram.

new( $moduleSpecifications )

Here you name the Perl module (or suite) you want to process. Enter the string you would specify in a 'use' or 'require' statement for this module.

You may enter as many module specifications as you like, separated by commas.

Render( $renderType [, $transformType] )

Renders the class diagram in the given format. Currently the only format that is recognized is 'UXF20'. These can be extended easily by creating a new Devel::Diagram::Render::<yourName> module.

Render() optionally takes a second parameter specifying a transformation on the rendered format, presumably resulting in a new format. For instance,

    Render('UXF20', 'xsl:uxf20toHtml')

renders the class diagram as UXF20, then runs it through the XSL transform named uxf20toHtml.xsl.

Render() expects to find the XSL stylesheet in the xsl folder of Devel::Diagram. You need XML::XSLT::Wrapper and an appropriate XSL transform engine to make this work.

Any warnings or errors in the rendering process can be found by investigating $@ on return.

TODO

These are some of the things I think can be done to extend Devel::Diagram.

XMI format: Currently UXF is the only XML format supported. XMI is another commonly used format (but more complex).
Fancy HTML rendering: Perhaps with Javascript and/or server side to assist in browsing the codebase.
Class::Struct parsing: Class::Struct is also used to code OO Perl. Need to recognize this structure in the codebase. There are also several other modules for class creation.
Parameters: What are the parameters of the operations?
Other parsing: The is more than one way to do it. OO Perl can be implemented in many ways; Devel::Diagram recognizes a few of them. CPAN is big, really big, so there are OO Perl techniques that Devel::Diagram will not recognize, yet.
Other UML diagrams: Collaboration, sequence, etc. (see UML::Sequence).
Devel::Diagram all modules of CPAN: Anybody?

AUTHOR

Devel::Diagram is written and maintained by Glenn Wood, http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=author&query=GLENNWOOD.

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Devel::Diagram - Discover the classes of an arbitrary suite of Perl modules