Cpp Dependency Graph

Generates useful component dependency visualisations (dot or d3.js) to study the architecture of C/C++ projects.

Why do all the other languages have awesome tools to analyse codebases but C/C++ does not?

It's time to change that.

This tool aims to -

• provide multiple views into the architecture of a codebase
• generate views at multiple levels of the architecture
• make the resulting views genuinely useful, rich, dynamic and interactive (static views are boring)

Inspiration

This tool is inspired by a number of projects rubrowser, cpp-dependencies and objc-dependency-visualizer.

The pretty d3 visualisations are directly copied from objc-dependency-visualiser.

A huge shout out to the people behind these projects.

Comparison With Other Tools

cpp-dependencies

cinclude2dot

dep-matrix

Usage

Installation

gem install cpp_dependency_graph

Help

cpp_dependency_graph -h

Overall component dependency graph

To generate the overall component dependency graph for a project, use it like so -

cpp_dependency_graph visualise -r spec\test\example_project\ -o deps.dot -f dot

Below is the overall dot and d3 component dependency visualisations for leveldb

NOTE - If your project has a large number of components (> 100 and lots of connections between them), then generation (and subsequent rendering) may take some time.

Individual component dependency graph

This will highlight the dependencies coming in and going out of a specific component. This allows you to filter out extraneous detail and study individual components in more detail.

cpp_dependency_graph visualise -r spec\test\example_project\ -c Engine -o deps.dot -f dot

Here's a component dependency visualisation generated for the queue component in rethinkdb

Component include dependency graph

This will highlight dependencies of includes within a specific component

cpp_dependency_graph visualise_includes -r spec\test\example_project\ -c Engine

Here's a component include dependency visualisation generated for the queue component in rethinkdb

Cyclic dependencies only graph

This will highlight cyclic dependencies between components within a project. This is especially useful for targeted refactoring activities to reduce coupling between components.

cpp_dependency_graph visualise_cyclic_deps -r spec\test\example_project\

Here's the cyclic dependencies only visualisation generated for rethinkdb and leveldb

Development

bundle exec cpp_dependency_graph visualise -r <dir>

License

cpp_dependency_graph is available under the MIT license.

Warranty

This software is provided "as is" and without any express or implied warranties, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.