Elevate Code Quality and Security

The purpose of code inspection is to examine the source code in order to deliver a reliable and stable application.

It is an essential step in software development, which allows to detect mainly bugs and security flaws early in the application's life cycle. It also helps to maintain coding consistency, resulting in higher quality software and a more efficient development process.

Code inspection can be done in several ways, each with its own advantages.

Manually performed, peer reviews or peer programming allow to benefit from human insight and understanding of the context.
Unfortunately, this is a very time-consuming task that, in reality, is rarely performed due to a lack of human and financial resources.

Given the imperatives of development teams, the only realistic way to set up a code review is to rely on a tool that will automatically and systematically analyze your code base.

Scan your code for Security Vulnerabilities, Bugs, and Maintainability Issues

Visual Expert implements 300+ rules, to check your code under various angles and improve its security, stability, and maintainability.

Detect and remove security vulnerabilities
Comply with coding "grammar" standards
Comply with code readability standards
Architectural layering adherence
Remove code duplicates
Improve performance
And more...

Preview the workload in a dedicated Dashboard

Include Code Inspection in a CI/CD pipeline

Visual Expert can inspect code from various sources:

Files located somewhere in your network
Source controls like GIT, SVN or TFS
Database, for Oracle PL/SQL and SQL Server Transact-SQL code

Many options are available to run a code inspection. For instance:

Manually, from the Visual Expert UI, anytime you need.
Automatically, on a scheduled basis
Anytime a build is released, using Jenkins, GitLab, AzureDevops, AWS Code Commit, etc.

What type of issues are detected?

Visual Expert implements a large number of rules, to check your code under various angles and improve its security, stability, and maintainability.

Bug	Flaw or mistake - other than syntax errors - that can break the application anytime. Fixing it is of highest priority.
Maintainability	This quality-related issue is not a bug. It is not technically incorrect and does not prevent the application from functioning. But it makes changes way more expensive and increases the probability of introducing new bugs.
Vulnerability	A flaw or weakness in code that could result in a security breach.
Security warning	A piece of code that may create a security breach, but must be manually examined to determine it.
Metric	Objective measurements of certain code properties or entities. Traditionally used for cost estimation, quality assurance, debugging, performance optimization, and task assignments.
Syntax error	Grammatical mistake in the syntax of a phrase that can prevent the code from compiling or executing. Fixing it is of the highest priority.

Issue Severity

Not all issues are critical. Each issue is assigned a severity level to prioritize improvements.

Critical	Bug that will probably alter the proper functioning of the application and must be fixed as soon as possible.
Major	Security vulnerability, or bug that could possibly alter the proper functioning of the application. To be addressed as quickly as possible.
Minor	Quality defect that can significantly affect the developer's productivity.
Low	Quality defect that may slightly affect the developer's productivity.
Information	Metric or information about the code.

Why Use Visual Expert Code Inspection

Unparalleled Code Analysis

In-depth analysis of your PowerBuilder, Oracle and SQL Server Code

Compliance and Standards Adherence

Ensure that your code base consistently meets quality and maintainability requirements.

Risk Mitigation and Quality Assurance

Ensure the reliability and security of your applications by identifying potential defects

Actionable information and reports

Prioritize and track improvements to optimize your development efforts

Enhanced Collaboration

Facilitate collaboration among team members thanks to VE's intuitive interface and sharing functions.

Time and Cost Savings

Automatically scan large code bases and efficiently identify problems.

Seamless Integration and Scalability

VE integrates seamlessly into your existing development workflow.

Continuous Code Inspection

Integrate VE into your CI/CD pipeline to ensure that every code change is validated before being deployed.

Visual Expert Features

200+ features to analyze and improve your PowerBuilder, Oracle and SQL Server code

Impact Analysis

Assess 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?

Visual Expert PowerBuilder Impact Analysis

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...

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).

Generate Diagrams from your Code

Visualize objects and dependencies.
Diagrams and source code are synchronized.
Select objects to generate a diagram

Visual Expert generates:

Data Model Diagram to document graphically database entities and their relationships.
Impact Analysis Diagrams to find all references to a table, column, object, method, variable...
Call graphs to visualize chains of calls (multiple levels of references).
PBL dependency diagrams to visualize dependencies between PBLs

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.

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Use Visual Expert with your Code

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Document 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.

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

Improve Code Performance

Find slow pieces of code. Remove Bottlenecks

Find the slowest procedures, functions, triggers
Reduce the time to access a given table
Break down the execution time of a large object into sub-queries or instructions.
Decompose the performance of a chain of calls

Identify Performance Issues in your DB Code

Code Comparison

Compare 2 versions of your DB or 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...

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Use Visual Expert with your Code

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Understand Complex Code

Explore the application structure. Understand its inner working.

When maintaining complex Applications, you may need to learn more about the code.
In such cases, Visual Expert is the perfect companion for PowerBuilder.

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.
Explore inheritance dependencies between PB objects.
Lots of advanced feature will screen your code under various angles.

Advanced String Search

Visual Expert Global Search addresses common shortcomings:

String searches often return lots of results. They are usually tedious and unproductive.

Use multiple criteria to reduce the search result.
Restrict search to one or several object types.
Search for exact words, or words starting/ending with, matching regular expressions…
Search into several PB targets at the same time.
Review results in a container hierarchy.
The strings found are highlighted in the code.
Filter relevant result items.
Share the outcome with colleagues.

Catch a glimpse of Visual Expert

Visual Expert Pricing & Editions

Subscription Perpetual

Pricing in Euro

- Basic
  up to 500 000 Lines of Code
  
  $595 /user
  /year
  - up to 500 000 Lines of Code
  - Cross-References / Impact Analysis
  - Code Inspection
  - Performance Tuning
  - Code Documentation
  - Installation on a Client PC
  - Updates
  Buy
- Basic
  up to 500 000 Lines of Code
  
  $1,395/user
  - up to 500 000 Lines of Code
  - Cross-References / Impact Analysis
  - Code Inspection
  - Performance Tuning
  - Code Documentation
  - Installation on a Client PC
  - Mandatory for the 1st year
  - Updates - $279
  Buy
- Professional
  up to 5 Million Lines of Code
  
  $1,195 /user
  /year
  - All Basic Features, plus:
  - Up to 5 million Lines of Code
  - Analysis History
  - Code Comparison
  - Analysis Scheduler
  - Collaborative Features
  - Integration with DevOps Platforms
  - Installation on a Client PC or a Server
  - Updates
  - Mandatory for the 1st year
  - Premium Support - $1795
  Get a Quote Buy
- Professional
  up to 5 Million Lines of Code
  
  $2,850 /user
  - All Basic Features, plus:
  - Up to 5 million Lines of Code
  - Analysis History
  - Code Comparison
  - Analysis Scheduler
  - Collaborative Features
  - Integration with DevOps Platforms
  - Installation on a Client PC or a Server
  - Mandatory for the 1st year
  - Updates - $570
  - Premium Support - $1795
  Get a Quote Buy
- Enterprise
  more than 5 Million Lines of Code
  
  Contact Us
  - All Professional Features, plus:
  - More than 5 million Lines of Code
  - Volume Discount
  - Updates
  - Premium Support
  Get a Quote
- Enterprise
  more than 5 Million Lines of Code
  
  Contact Us
  - All Professional Features, plus:
  - More than 5 million Lines of Code
  - Volume Discount
  - Updates
  - Premium Support
  Get a Quote

Key Features

Elevate Code Quality and Security

Scan your code for Security Vulnerabilities, Bugs, and Maintainability Issues

Include Code Inspection in a CI/CD pipeline

What type of issues are detected?

Issue Severity

Why Use Visual Expert Code Inspection

Unparalleled Code Analysis

Compliance and Standards Adherence

Risk Mitigation and Quality Assurance

Actionable information and reports

Enhanced Collaboration

Time and Cost Savings

Seamless Integration and Scalability

Continuous Code Inspection

Get your Free Trial

Use Visual Expert with your Code

Visual Expert Features

Impact Analysis

Scan for Security Vulnerabilities

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

Generate Diagrams from your Code

Explore Complex Chains of Calls

Get your Free Trial

Use Visual Expert with your Code

Document your Code

Improve Code Quality

Improve Code Performance

Code Comparison

Get your Free Trial

Use Visual Expert with your Code

Understand Complex Code

Advanced String Search

Catch a glimpse of Visual Expert

How it works?

Visual Expert Pricing & Editions

Get your Free Trial

Use Visual Expert with your Code

Feedback from our clients

Reduces expenses

Become familiar with a new application in literally a few hours

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