Interface visualization

In certain situations, you might want to view a visual model of a large body of external code. This could be for the purpose of exploring the code or because you would like to include types or calls to operations from this code in the application you are modeling. The interface visualization feature provides you with a low-overhead way to do this.

Interface visualization imports only the interface aspects of the external code - the public and protected elements in the code. Because only the signature of methods is of interest in such situations, the bodies of methods are not imported into your model.

Code is never generated for the elements imported using interface visualization.

This feature is available for the following languages: C, C++, C#, Java.

Importing the interface

Procedure

  1. Open the Reverse Engineering window by clickingTools > Reverse Engineering.
  2. In the Options area, select Visualization Only.
  3. Verify that the Interface Visualization check box is selected.
  4. Click Start to begin the import process.

Results

The imported code is represented by external elements in the model browser.

Updating interface visualization

If you want to use interface visualization to import a newer version of the source files, you can update the visualization.

Procedure

  1. Copy the new source files to the relevant directory, replacing the older files.
  2. Do one of the following steps:
    • For C, C++, and C# code, run roundtripping by clicking Code > Roundtrip
      Note: If the newer version of the source files includes new directories, you can use the Roundtrip Settings window to specify that the files in these new directories should be included.
    • For Java code, run reverse engineering (Tools > Reverse Engineering) again. In the Reverse Engineering Advanced Options window, use the Policy options on the Misc tab to specify whether entire packages should be overwritten or merged.

Feedback