Key Features

Visual Expert is a must-have solution for the maintenance of your PowerBuilder and Database code

Cross-References

Analyze the impact of a change in your code

Estimate what you should modify to accomplish a change.
Don't break your application after a change!

  • If I change this variable, what is the effect on my code?
  • If I add a parameter to a function, what else is affected?
  • If a table or column is changed, which code should I update?
Read More

Scan for Security Vulnerabilities

Identify and fix Security issues in your code:

  • Hard coded user id & passwords 
  • Hard coded IP addresses.
  • Vulnerabilities to Injections attacks
  • Fields access/protection issues
  • Improper/unsecured use of encryption
  • and more...

Read the Tutorial    Check rules for Code Security

Review CRUD Operations in Your Code
(Create, Read, Update, Delete)

Generate a CRUD matrix showing which programs access your data.
For instance, which DW or Procedures Create/Read/Update/Delete which Tables.

  • Review dependencies between database and PB applications.
  • Analyze the impact of changing your database Schema, for example changing a table definition or adding an index.
  • Estimate software complexity and development efforts.
  • Find out which table is never updated, deleted from multiple places, etc.
  • Make sure every process has at least one input (R) and one output (CUD).
Read More

Generate Diagrams from your Code

  • Visualize objects and dependencies.
  • Diagrams and source code are synchronized.
  • Select objects to generate a diagram
  • If needed, adjust objects position with an editor
  • Save, export and share your diagrams
Read More

Explore Complex Chains of Calls

Display Call Trees: callers and callees for Functions and events.

Explore all possible execution paths.
Drill down in the code, click on referenced methods or variables to see their definitions.

Call trees help evaluate the effects of modifications to your code.

Read More

Document your PB Code

Generate documentation from your code; create reference manuals in HTML.
Update your documentation on a regular basis (scheduled job).
Document the references in your code and navigate between these using hyperlinks.
Share knowledge with teammates.

Read More    View a Sample Doc

Code Comparison

Compare 2 versions of your application:

  • View differences in a container hierarchy.
  • Drill down to find relevant changes.
  • Filter changes for a given object, or object type: Userobject, Table, Procedure...
  • Filter changes in a given PBL.
  • Save “snapshots” of your code on a regular basis, and compare them anytime.
  • And more...
Read More

Improve Code Performance

  • Identify objects and methods slowing down your application.
  • Analyze complex call chains, to find and eliminate bottlenecks.
  • Find code generating SQLs that degrade database performance.
Read More

Improve Code Quality

Cleanup the code. Streamline maintenance efforts. Avoid unexpected behavior.

  • Identify unused objects and remove some dead code.
  • Find empty methods, duplicated objects, oversized or uncommented scripts.
  • Calculate code metrics: lines of code, number of objects, methods, variables…
  • Check naming conventions.
  • Find objects that do not inherit from an ancestor etc.
  • You can check your code against hundreds of rules

Code Review Sample doc     Checkout Rules for Code Quality

Continuous Code Inspection

Increase the quality and security of your code.
Reduce technical debts and maintenance costs.

Automatically scan your PowerBuilder code for defects by integrating continuous inspection into your CI/CD pipeline. You will ensure that the code developed by each member of your team complies with quality and security requirements before deployment.

Read More

Understand Complex Code

When maintaining complex Applications, you may need to learn more about the code.
Visual Expert is the perfect companion for your development tool: TOAD or others.

Explore the application structure. Understand its inner workings.
Navigate in your code via hyperlinks: each reference comes with a link to the referenced item.
Tooltips provide useful information about objects, methods and variables.
Lots of advanced feature will screen your code under various angles.

How It Works

  1. Code parsers analyze your code and store the analysis in a repository.
  2. You can then query this repository to learn more about your code.
  3. Standalone configurations (Professional Edition):
    Recommended for small/medium volumes of code.
    Run all components on a single PC
  4. Client/Server configurations (Team System):
    Code Analyzers and Repository reside on a server.
    Developers run a VE client on their PC and access the shared Repository.
  5. Code Analysis and Documentation are automatically generated with Scheduled Jobs.

Collaborative Features

Feedback from our clients