NAME UML::Class::Simple - Render simple UML class diagrams, often by loading the code. VERSION This document describes "UML::Class::Simple" 0.01 released by Oct 30, 2006. SYNOPSIS use UML::Class::Simple; # produce a class diagram for fglock's Pugs::Compiler::Perl6 # which has already installed to your perl: @classes = classes_from_runtime("PPI", qr/^PPI::/); $painter = UML::Class::Simple->new(\@classes); $painter->as_png('ppi.png'); # produce a class diagram for your CPAN module on the disk @classes = classes_from_files(['lib/Foo.pm', 'lib/Foo/Bar.pm']); $painter = UML::Class::Simple->new(\@classes); # we can explicitly specify the image size $painter->size(5, 3.6); # in inches # ...and change the default title background color: $painter->node_color('#ffffff'); # defaults to '#f1e1f4' # only show public methods and properties $painter->public_only(1); $painter->as_png('my_module.png'); DESCRIPTION "UML::Class::Simple" is a Perl CPAN module that generates UML class diagrams (PNG format, GIF format, or dot source) automatically from Perl 5 source or Perl 5 runtime. Perl developers can use this module to obtain pretty class diagrams for arbitrary existing Perl class libraries (including modern perl OO modules based on Moose.pm), by only a single command. Companies can also use the resulting pictures to visualize the project hierarchy and embed them into their documentation. The users no longer need to drag a mouse on the screen so as to draw figures themselves or provide any specs other than the source code of their own libraries that they want to depict. This module does all the jobs for them! :) You know, I was really impressed by the outputs of UML::Sequence, so I decided to find something to (automatically) get pretty class diagrams too. The images from Autodia's Graphviz backend didn't quite fit my needs when I was making some slides for my representations, so I started another competing project after getting some guide from "#perl" on "irc.perl.org". ;-) I think most of the time you just want to use the command-line utility umlclass.pl offered by this module (just like me). See the documentation of umlclass.pl for details. SAMPLE OUTPUTS PPI (See samples/ppi_small.png in the distribution.) Moose (See samples/moose_small.png in the distribution.) FAST (See samples/fast.png in the distribution.) SUBROUTINES classes_from_runtime($module_to_load, $regex) Returns a list of class (or package) names by inspecting the perl runtime environment. $module_to_load is the *main* module name to load while $regex is a perl regex used to filter out interesting package names. The $regex argument can be omitted. classes_from_files(\@pmfiles, $regex) Returns a list of class (or package) names by scanning through the perl source files given in the first argument. $regex is used to filter out interesting package names. The $regex argument can be omitted. These subroutines are not imported by default. METHODS "$obj->new( [@class_names] )" Creates a new UML::Class::Simple instance with the specified class name list. This list can either be constructed manually or by the utility functions "classes_from_runtime" and "classes_from_files". "$obj->as_png($filename?)" Generates PNG image file when $filename is given. It returns binary data when $filename is not given. "$obj->as_gif($filename?)" Similar to ", bug generate a GIF-format image. "$obj->as_dom()" Returns the internal DOM tree used to generate dot and png. The tree's structure looks like this: { 'classes' => [ { 'subclasses' => [], 'methods' => [], 'name' => 'PPI::Structure::List', 'properties' => [] }, { 'subclasses' => [ 'PPI::Structure::Block', 'PPI::Structure::Condition', 'PPI::Structure::Constructor', 'PPI::Structure::ForLoop', 'PPI::Structure::List', 'PPI::Structure::Subscript', 'PPI::Structure::Unknown' ], 'methods' => [ '_INSTANCE', '_set_finish', 'braces', 'content', 'elements', 'finish', 'first_element', 'insert_after', 'insert_before', 'last_element', 'new', 'refaddr', 'start', 'tokens' ], 'name' => 'PPI::Structure', 'properties' => [] }, ... ] } You can adjust the data structure and feed it back to $obj via the "set_dom" method. "$obj->set_dom($dom)" Set the internal DOM structure to $obj. This will be used to generate the dot source and thus the PNG image. "$obj->as_dot()" Returns the Graphviz dot source code generated by $obj. "$obj->set_dot($dot)" Sets the dot source code used by $obj. PROPERTIES "$obj->size($width, $height)" "($width, $height) = $obj->size" Sets/gets the size of the output images, in inches. "$obj->public_only($bool)" "$bool = $obj->public_only" when the "public_only" property is set to true, only public methods or properties are shown. It defaults to false. "$obj->node_color($color)" "$color = $obj->node_color" Sets/gets the background color for the class nodes. It defaults to '#f1e1f4'. INSTALLATION Please download and intall the latest Graphviz binary from its home: UML::Class::Simple requires the HTML label feature which is only available on versions of Graphviz that are newer than mid-November 2003. In particular, it is not part of release 1.10. Add Graphviz's bin/ path to your PATH environment. This module needs its dot utility. Grab this module from the CPAN mirror near you and run the following commands: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install For windows users, use "nmake" instead of "make". Note that it's recommended to use the "cpan" utility to install CPAN modules. LIMITATIONS * It's pretty hard to distinguish perl methods from properties (actually they're both subs in perl). If you have any good ideas, please drop me a line. * Only the inheritance relationships are shown in the images. I believe other subtle relations can only mess up the Graphviz layouter. Hence the "::Simple" suffix in this module name. * Unlike Autodia, at this moment only Graphviz backend is provided. * There's no way to recognize "real" perl classes automatically. After all, Perl 5's classes are implemented by packages. I think Perl 6 will make my life much easier. * To prevent potential naming confusion. I'm using Perl's "::" namespace separator in the class diagrams instead of dot (".") in the standard UML syntax. One can argue that following UML standards are more important since people in the same team may use different programming languages. But sorry, it's not the case for me. ;-) TODO * Add more unit tests. * Add support for more image formats, such as as_ps, as_jpg, and etc. * Provide a DOM interface for the class hierarchy so that the user can control what's in there and what not. * Provide backends other than Graphviz. * Plot class relationships other than inheritance on the user's request. Please send me your wish list via emails or preferably the CPAN RT site. I'll add them here if I'm also interested in your crazy ideas. ;-) BUGS There must be some serious bugs lurking somewhere. so if you found one, please report it to . ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I must thank Adam Kennedy (Alias) for writing the excellent PPI module and Class::Inspector. pm2png uses the former to extract package names from user's .pm files while rt2png uses the latter to retrieve the function list of a specific package. AUTHOR Agent Zhang COPYRIGHT Copyright 2006 by Agent Zhang. All rights reserved. This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as perl itself. SEE ALSO umlclass.pl, Autodia, UML::Sequence, PPI, Class::Inspector.