Tracking dependencies

[Dathan]

Sorry for the off-topic post. I know this isn't the appropriate
forum, but I'm really not sure where the appropriate place to as is.

I deal with multi-tier business application frameworks. I've
inherited a poorly-designed system and am striving to get it
structured better. One thing I'm running into, though, is a lack of
documentation on system dependencies. I have a variety of tools for
tracking RDBMS dependencies, and tracking build dependencies within
each project isn't too hard, but I haven't found a good system for
tracking inter-project dependencies. Specifically, Form A within one
of our front-ends depends on business object B, which uses data
adapter C, which connects to method D on web service E, which uses a
query against database F that involves joins across tables G, H, I,
and J. I haven't found a system that supports anything like this with
any amount of sophistication. I'm currently tracking dependencies
using Visio, and it's just not quite cutting the mustard.

If anyone can recommend a good application, commericial or otherwise,
or point me to a better forum for posting this sort of question, I'd
appreciate it.

~Dathan

 

[Ken Halter]

Sorry for the off-topic post. I know this isn't the appropriate
forum, but I'm really not sure where the appropriate place to as is.

Well.... I've been using the app below for quite a while to help me make
sure I package everything I need in InstallShield ... but, of course, the
app has to be running and dependencies in use, so I'm not sure how valuable
that would be, in your case....

If interested, start the app below, run yours, find it in the list of
processes and ask for a list of modules. Shows all dlls/etc your app is
currently using - Handy to have, regardless.

PrcView (Process Viewer) - Freeware
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,6102-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

....and, you probably already have these excellent utilities....

Sysinternals - Freeware
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

....but, C# doesn't fly with the product below... if it did, it sounds like
the perfect tool for what you've described. It's far from "freeware",
though. There *must* be something similar for C#.

Project Analyzer Enterprise Edition
http://www.aivosto.com/project/enterprise.html
<q> Multi-project analysis. Analyze several related projects together to
find dependencies between them.</q>

 

[Dathan]

Well.... I've been using the app below for quite a while to help me make
sure I package everything I need in InstallShield ... but, of course, the
app has to be running and dependencies in use, so I'm not sure how valuable
that would be, in your case....

If interested, start the app below, run yours, find it in the list of
processes and ask for a list of modules. Shows all dlls/etc your app is
currently using - Handy to have, regardless.

PrcView (Process Viewer) - Freewarehttp://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,6102-order,1-page,1-c,alldo...

...and, you probably already have these excellent utilities....

Sysinternals - Freewarehttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

...but, C# doesn't fly with the product below... if it did, it sounds like
the perfect tool for what you've described. It's far from "freeware",
though. There *must* be something similar for C#.

Project Analyzer Enterprise Editionhttp://www.aivosto.com/project/enterprise.html
<q> Multi-project analysis. Analyze several related projects together to
find dependencies between them.</q>

Thanks. I downloaded PrcView. You're right, it doesn't help with
what I want to do, but is definitely a useful program to have. I'll
keep looking.

 

[Dathan]

Thanks! I looked at the demos. It definitely seems to be a useful
program, and will do all of the dependency tracking that I need inside
the codebase, but I'm looking for a product that will allow me to
manually define dependencies between modules within and objects
outside the codebase (e.g., a particular method and a database table)
which are more or less impossible to find automatically. Does NDepend
support this?

~Dathan