Subj : Re: Flowchart software that supports top down development?
To   : comp.programming
From : LurfysMa
Date : Wed Jul 27 2005 03:22 pm

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 08:12:19 +0000 (UTC), Richard Heathfield
<invalid@address.co.uk.invalid> wrote:

>[Followups set to comp.programming]
>
>LurfysMa wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> Now, do you know of a flowcharting tool that will do most of the
>> clerical part of keeping track of the links (stubs)?
>
>No, but I can think of an easy way to do it yourself. In each function, 
>write a line to a dot file, documenting the function. If it's a stub, make 
>the label stand out (e.g. colour it red). Whenever you call a function, 
>write a line to the dot file, documenting the call. So, for example, you 
>might end up with a dot file like this:
>
>digraph "G" {
>  main [label="main" fontcolor="white" color="blue" style="filled"];
>  main -> foo;
>  main -> bar;
>  foo [label="foo" fontcolor="white" color="red" style="filled"];
>  bar [label="bar" fontcolor="white" color="blue" style="filled"];
>  bar -> foo;
>  bar -> baz;
>  baz [label="baz" fontcolor="white" color="red" style="filled"];
>};
>
>(I've written this in the same order that I would expect it to be 
>generated.)
>
>In this example, I've used red for stubs and blue for non-stubs. The exact 
>details of how you actually write the dot file code does, of course, depend 
>on the language you're using, but the good news is that it should 
>modularise nicely.
>
>To generate the dot file itself, of course, you simply run the program. Then 
>you pipe the resulting output through dot:
>
>me@here:~/dev/scratch> cat scratch.dot | dot -Tps -o scratch.ps
>
>or, if you're using an Imperial system:
>
>c:\dev\scratch> type scratch.dot | dot -Tps -o scratch.ps
>
>How you view the resulting image depends on which output format you chose. 
>Here, I chose PostScript, so I can just do:
>
>me@here:~/dev/scratch> gv scratch.ps &
>
>Just one annoyance - if, say, bar calls foo MANY times (i.e. more than 
>once), you'll get many arrows joining them in your diagram. The fix is 
>either to ensure that your call-generating code only gets called once 
>regardless of how often the subsidiary function is called, or to pour the 
>program through a uniqueness filter that preserves line order. Fortunately, 
>it's fairly trivial to write such a filter (or of course you could nose 
>around on the Net for one).
>
>Last I checked, you could get dot from: http://www.graphviz.org

Thanks for that pointer. I will look into graphviz when I get a
chance.

I was hoping for a Visio-like program  with just the added
functionality that it would keep track of the parent-child links.

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