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Explore, Analyze & Document your Code

Object Dependencies

Identify all objects and their dependencies
in PowerBuilder, Oracle and SQL Server Code

Understand Code

Understand the Code

No Matter How Complex

Impact Analysis

Evaluate the impact of a change

Don't break your app after a change!

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Object Dependencies Features

Impact Analysis

Cross References

Avoid Regressions

  • Find calls to a certain item
  • Locate each reference at instruction level
PowerBuilder
Oracle SQL Server
CRUD MATRIX

CRUD Matrix

Review CRUD Operations

  • Assess the Impact of a DB change
  • Find objects accessing certain tables
PowerBuilder
Oracle    SQL Server
Call Graph

Call Graphs

Explore Chains of Calls

  • View chains of calls.
  • Review a business feature.
     
PowerBuilder
Oracle    SQL Server
Object Dependency Matrix

E/R Diagrams

Model your code

  • Understand the inner workings of your application.
  • Call Graphs, Impact Analysis, PBL dependencies, Data Model
PowerBuilder   Oracle   SQL Server
Calls to Web Services in PB Code

Calls to Web Services

Track PowerBuilder calls

  • From an entire PB app,
  • a selection of PBLs,
  • a selection of PB objects.
PowerBuilder
PBL Dependenccy

PBL Dependencies

Explore Dependencies at PBL Level

  • Visualize calls across PBLs.
  • Separate application modules.
     
PowerBuilder
Object Dependency Matrix

Object Dependency Matrix

Generate an ODM

  • Review references between Oracle, SQL Server & PB objects
PowerBuilder
Oracle   SQL Server
Reverse Call Graphs

Reverse Call Graphs

Recursive Impact Analysis

  • Visualize calling relationships at multiple levels
PowerBuilder
Oracle     SQL Server
Dll Dependency

Dll Dependencies

Find DLL functions called from a PB App

  • Deploy the required DLLs
  • Replace 32 bit by 64 bit DLLs
PowerBuilder

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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).
Visual Expert PowerBuilder CRUD Matrix 

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


Visualize your code with diagrams

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.

Visual Expert Call Trees

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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.

 

PowerBuilder Documentation Tools 

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...
PowerBuilder Code Comparison 

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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.

 

Catch a glimpse of Visual Expert

How it works?

Visual Expert Pricing & Editions

Pricing in Euro

    • Basic

      For individual developers with small projects

      $625 /user
      /year
      500 000 Lines of Code
      • Installation on a Client PC
      • Cross-References / Impact Analysis
      • Code Inspection
      • Performance Tuning
      • Code Documentation
      • Updates

    • Professional

      For teams managing large codebases and requiring collaboration tools

      $1,255 /user
      /year
      5 million Lines of Code
      • All Basic Features, plus:
      • Client/server configuration
      • Web Client available
      • Collaborative Features
      • Integration with DevOps Platforms
      • Code Comparison
      • Code Analysis Scheduler & History
      • Updates
      Need more than 5 million Lines of Code?
      Get Volume Discount

    • ENTERPRISE AI

      For teams managing large codebases and requiring AI-powered features

      $1,875 /user
      /year
      5 million Lines of Code
      • All Professional plus AI Features :
      • 10,000 AI Credits per user
      • (AI) Explain the Business
      • (AI) Explain the Logic
      • (AI) Add comments in the code
      • (AI) Fix a problem
      • (AI) Optimize SQL & Code
      • Updates
      Need more than 5 million Lines of Code?
      Get Volume Discount
      • Mandatory for the 1st year
      • Premium Support - $1,885

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Feedback from our clients

Jane Doe

Reduces expenses

Using VE's features allows a much quicker turnaround, reduces expenses and frees up resources for more productive work.

- Project Manager
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Jane Doe

Become familiar with a new application in literally a few hours

(The) More you work with Visual Expert - more you understand how convenient it is. (...) I cannot remember so powerful a tool that allows a user to become familiar with a new application in literally a few hours

- Georges Mikhailovsky
Calibre Systems
HSBC
Allianz
BNP
US Army
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Glencore
Atos
EDS

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