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?
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...
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
- If needed, adjust objects position with an editor
- Save, export and share your 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.
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.
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...
Improve Code Performance
- 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
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
Understand Complex Code
When maintaining complex Applications, you may need to learn more about the code.
In such cases, Visual Expert is the perfect companion for PowerBuilder.
Explore the application structure. Understand its inner working.
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 features will screen your code under various angles.
How It Works
- Code parsers analyze your code and store the analysis in a repository.
- You can then query this repository to learn more about your code.
- Standalone configurations (Professional Edition):
Recommended for small/medium volumes of code.
Run all components on a single PC - 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. - Code Analysis and Documentation are automatically generated with Scheduled Jobs.
Feedback from our clients
Reduces expenses
Using VE's features allows a much quicker turnaround, reduces expenses and frees up resources for more productive work.
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
