I have been on several teams where we studiously designed UML diagrams at the beginning of the project. As the project progressed, and deadlines approached,
the UML diagrams were left somewhere behind, not to be updated in months. When a new developer joined the team, we showcased the old UML diagrams,
and kept telling "Oh, we never had time to update them, please see the source code to get an idea. And, don't hesitate to ask if you have any doubt's".
I am sure, you all have gone through the same scenario.
However, we don't have to keep making up stories anymore, since this article shows how easy and simple it is to include UML diagrams
within your Javadoc and also keep them updated with every change in the source code repository. We can do these in less than a few minutes,
and in a few simple steps.
Getting started with UmlGraph takes five steps:
- Download the source code for UMlGraph.
- Download and install Graphviz.
- Make changes to your Ant build file.
- Run the Ant target.
- Add this target to your CI job.
Step 1: Download the source code for UMLGraph from here. Unzip the contents. To compile the Java doclet from the source code run
of JDK you are using you get an exception like this:
java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Bad version number in .class file
Make sure you recompile the UMLGraph source code, and copy the library to your project.
Step2 : Download and install Graphviz from
here. The dot file needs to be post-processed with Graphviz to produce the actual UML diagram.
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- <target name="javadocs" depends="build" description="generates javadoc and also UML Diagram">
- <mkdir dir="${reports.dir}/javadoc"/>
- <javadoc sourcepath="${src.dir}" packagenames="com.stelligent.*" destdir="${reports.dir}/javadoc"
- classpathref="java.classpath" private="true">
- <doclet name="org.umlgraph.doclet.UmlGraphDoc"
- path="lib/UMLGraph.jar">
- <param name="-attributes" />
- <param name="-operations" />
- <param name="-qualify" />
- <param name="-types" />
- <param name="-visibility" />
- </doclet>
- </javadoc>
- <apply executable="dot" dest="${reports.dir}" parallel="false">
- <arg value="-Tpng"/>
- <arg value="-o"/>
- <targetfile/>
- <srcfile/>
- <fileset dir="${reports.dir}" includes="*.dot"/>
- <mapper type="glob" from="*.dot" to="*.png"/>
- </apply>
- </target>
<target name="javadocs" depends="build" description="generates javadoc and also UML Diagram">
<mkdir dir="${reports.dir}/javadoc"/>
<javadoc sourcepath="${src.dir}" packagenames="com.stelligent.*" destdir="${reports.dir}/javadoc"
classpathref="java.classpath" private="true">
<doclet name="org.umlgraph.doclet.UmlGraphDoc"
path="lib/UMLGraph.jar">
<param name="-attributes" />
<param name="-operations" />
<param name="-qualify" />
<param name="-types" />
<param name="-visibility" />
</doclet>
</javadoc>
<apply executable="dot" dest="${reports.dir}" parallel="false">
<arg value="-Tpng"/>
<arg value="-o"/>
<targetfile/>
<srcfile/>
<fileset dir="${reports.dir}" includes="*.dot"/>
<mapper type="glob" from="*.dot" to="*.png"/>
</apply>
</target>
A number of options contol the operation of UMLGraph class diagram generator. These can be specified as parameters within your build file as shown above.
Details about a few options are:
-output
Specify the output file (default graph.dot).
-d
Specify the output directory (defaults to the current directory).
-qualify
Produce fully-qualified class names.
-horizontal
Layout the graph in the horizontal direction.
-attributes
Show class attributes (Java fields)
-operations
Show class operations (Java methods)
-constructors
Show a class's constructors
-visibility
Adorn class elements according to their visibility (private, public, protected, package)
-types
Add type information to attributes and operations
-enumerations
Show enumarations as separate stereotyped primitive types.
-enumconstants
When showing enumerations, also show the values they can take.
-all
Same as -attributes -operations -visibility -types -enumerations -enumconstants
Take a look here for more options.
The javadoc generated is pretty neat with UML diagrams on the top:
Step 5: Add this target to your CI Job.
If you already have a CI server like Hudson up and running, which runs commit builds and nightly builds, adding this new target is a one step process.
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- <target name="all" depends="cleanAndDeployForCoverage, javadocs" />
<target name="all" depends="cleanAndDeployForCoverage, javadocs" />
Next, force a build on the Hudson job, publish the javadocs, and you can see the results on the hudson dashboard.
The Javadoc embedded with UML diagrams displayed from within the Hudson dashboard:
Now that we have UML diagram integrated within our build file, and also our CI job, we can ensure that our code base and the UML diagrams are always in sync.
We saw how to include these ant targets in our commit builds or nightly builds of our CI jobs, and also published these artifacts as part of our post build process.
Resources:
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