rmgiroux/cppdep

C/C++ Dependency Analyzer: a rewrite of John Lakos' dep_utils (adep/cdep/ldep) from "Large-Scale C++ Software Design"

cppdep performs dependency analyses among components/packages/package groups of a large C/C++ project. This is a rewrite of dep_utils(adep/cdep/ldep), which is provided by John Lakos' book "Large-Scale C++ Software Design", Addison Wesley (1996).

Differences from dep_utils

• Rewrite in Python, unifying adep/cdep/ldep into one tool
• Single configuration file (yaml file)
• No file alias support for the archaic file-name length limitations
• An extended notion of Component (header- or source-only)
• Support for multiple packages and package groups
• Support for exporting final dependency graph to Graphviz dot format

Limitations

• Indirect extern declarations of global variables or functions instead of including the proper component header with the declarations.
• Embedded dynamic dependencies, such as dynamic loading and configurable internal services.
• Preprocessing or macro expansion is not performed. Dependency inclusion via preprocessor meta-programming is not handled.
• Dependency exclusion with C style multi-line comments or macros is not respected.

Requirements

1. Python 2.7 or 3.4+
2. NetworkX
3. pydotplus
4. PyYAML
5. PyKwalify
6. (Optional) Graphviz
7. (Optional) xdot

The dependencies can be installed with pip.

$ sudo pip install networkx pydotplus PyYAML PyKwalify

Installation

The latest stable release from PyPi:

$ sudo pip install cppdep

Usage

Create a configuration file that describes the project for analysis. config_example.yml and config_schema.yml are given for guidance.

In the root directory of the project with the configuration file, run the following command to generate dependency analysis reports and graphs.

$ cppdep -c /path/to/config/file

Graph to Image Conversion

To view the generated graph dot files without converting to other formats.

$ xdot graph.dot

Here's how to convert a Graphviz dot file to PDF format.

$ dot -Tpdf graph1.dot -o graph1.pdf

Apply -O flag to automatically generate output file names from the input file names.

$ dot -T pdf graph1.dot -O  # The output file is graph1.dot.pdf

To run dot on files in directories and sub-directories recursively.

$ find -type f -name "*.dot" directory_path | xargs dot -Tpdf -O

To create output file names without .dot in the name.

$ find -type f -name "*.dot" directory_path -exec sh -c 'dot -Tpdf "${0}" -o "${0%.*}.pdf"' {} \;

External links

1. The last known location of John Lakos' dep_utils source code: http://www-numi.fnal.gov/computing/d120/releases/R2.2/Dependency/
2. Experimental packaging of dep_utils source code: https://sourceforge.net/projects/introspector/files/lsc-large-scale-c/first-release/
3. Nmdepend, a lightweight 'link-time' dependency analyzer for C++ using object files and libraries instead of source-code as input.

Acknowledgments

• John Lakos for inventing the analysis and providing dep_utils.
• Zhichang Yu for rewriting dep_utils into Python.