Is there a utility for Delphi 6 that analyzes class hierarchies and can be queried for method ancestry?

Question

Is there a tool for Delphi 6 that can analyze the class hierarchy of your application and answer questions about particular methods? I could use a tool that could take a particular method name and it would show which classes in the call hierarchy implement that method, the method traits at each inheritance level (abstract, overridden, etc.) the body of the call at each level I could see where the method's implementation is merely a stub, and if each implementation calls the inherited method or not.

Answer 1

I have been looking for such a tool since I started OO development (1998). It would be a great help in exploring the VCL or any other library you are not (yet) familiar with. It would also be great to re-familiarize yourself with parts of a large code base. Haven't found one yet though.

Modelmaker by Gerrit Beuze comes close. It can read in your code and you can then explore your class hierarchy. In the standard setup you have your classes in a tree or list in the upper left, the method declarations for the selected class in the lower left and the method implementions can be shown in the right part of the window when you select the correct view.

ModelMaker Code Explorer does the same kind of thing in the IDE (using the IDE's code editor of course), but without the class hierarchy.

I have not found a way yet, with ModelMaker or any other tool, to show this stuff in a "method centered" view. Something like the left side of ModelMaker, but with the right side showing the implementations at each level in the class hierarchy (including the virtual/override etc) modifiers that you normally do not see in the implementation section. Would be nice if it also were able to spot missing "inherited" calls.