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I have a big legacy code in C#.

I need to analyze it in order to recommend the best way to build some new features in the program.

Is there any tool which enables fast analyzing, and can show the class associations in a clear way which helps me get in to this old logic as fast as possible?

Any experience stories or recommendation on how get this best done would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Billy ONeal
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  • Are you after dependency analysis? If so this may be a duplicate of this question on [Detecting dependencies between namespaces in .Net](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/304967/detecting-dependencies-between-namespaces-in-net) – user7116 May 26 '11 at 19:17

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There are static analysis tools that can help with such a codebase.

Visual Studio 2010 architecture edition comes with the class diagram designer, and will generate the class diagram and dependancies for you (Architecture->Generate Dependency Graph->Class Diagram).

There is also the commercial nDepend.

Oded
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  • Actually, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate edition is version you want with code visualization tools such as dependency graphs. Here's a video that shows how these work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJpPusOORVo. If you also install the feature pack, you can create UML class diagrams from C# code: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff657806.aspx – Esther Fan - MSFT Jun 01 '11 at 20:33
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I highly recommend you to take a look at Visual Studio 2010 Architecture Explorer and Dependency Graphs which provide you with great capabilities to analyze legacy codes.

Alireza Maddah
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I would recommend you to use NDepend.

Take a look at this list, it includes short description of each tool.

CloudyMarble
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To complete the O.D answer, NDepend is a tool especially dedicated to analyze and master large .NET code bases (legacy or not).

The tool proposes fast analysis, dependency graph and dependency matrix, code comparison, code ruling facilities, VS full integration and more features. You can try it now on your code since a free Trial version is proposed.

Since you seem interested especially by exploring dependencies like class associations, here is an introduction to start with dependency graph. class associations dependency graph

Here is an introduction to start with dependency matrix (better suited than graph to explore dependencies in a large piece of code). assembly associations dependency matrix

Patrick from NDepend team
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Try running it through Code Perspective - It provides real-time visualization of your application. I found it helped a lot understand how a large legacy code base of mine worked.

https://codeperspective.com/

Marksl
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IMHO the best you can get is Resharper - a combination of using Type Hierarchy, Value Tracking and Call Tracking is the best way to navigate an old warship legacy codebase and get a grasp on it.

Omer Raviv
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  • Perhaps because, as good as those functions are, they don't generate diagrams that would let you see a complete picture of all the references. – Jonathan Sep 05 '11 at 02:30