Best Software Intelligence Platforms for HTML

Understand serves as an all-encompassing platform for static analysis and code comprehension, enabling software developers to visualize and grasp the intricacies of extensive and complex codebases, regardless of whether they are legacy systems, safety-critical applications, or modern multi-language initiatives. By parsing the source code, it creates a thorough “code dictionary” that catalogs every entity—such as files, classes, functions, and variables—while generating vital cross-references, call trees, dependency graphs, and control-flow diagrams. With its interactive and customizable visual tools, including call graphs, control flow graphs, and UML-style class diagrams, users can delve into the relationships between different code components, identify dependencies among modules, and anticipate the potential impact of changes throughout the project. Furthermore, Understand provides a comprehensive analysis of various metrics at multiple levels—file, class, and function—like cyclomatic complexity, total lines of code, comment-to-code ratios, and coupling/cohesion, which serve as essential indicators of maintainability; these metrics can be easily visualized in treemaps and exported in HTML or CSV formats. This multifaceted approach not only enhances code comprehension but also aids in improving overall software quality and maintainability.

eXplain is a robust tool developed by PKS Software GmbH for code analysis and the assessment of legacy systems, specifically aimed at performing in-depth evaluations of legacy applications on mainframe platforms like IBM i (AS/400) and IBM Z. This software allows organizations to gain insights into their software's contents, structural integrity, and identifies components that may be retained, improved, or phased out. By importing existing source code into a standalone "eXplain server," the tool eliminates the necessity for installations on the host system, utilizing sophisticated parsers to scrutinize programming languages such as COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, Natural, RPG, and JCL, along with information pertaining to databases like Db2, Adabas, and IMS, as well as job schedulers and transaction monitors. eXplain creates a centralized repository that functions as a knowledge hub, from which it can produce cross-language dependency graphs, data-flow diagrams, interface evaluations, groupings of related modules, and comprehensive reports on object and resource usage. This enables users to visualize relationships within the code, enhancing their understanding of the software landscape. Ultimately, eXplain empowers organizations to make informed decisions regarding the future of their legacy systems.