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I am about to leave my position and I need to leave documentation for the maintenance of my Java program. The class diagrams I designed at the start of my project are all out of date, to save time I would like to automatically reverse engineer class diagrams. I cannot figure out how to use UMLGraph with Eclipse - I tried LightUML plugin but that error-ed out, with this:

org.eclipse.core.runtime.CoreException: /Users/ctcyu/_EclipseWorkSpace/.metadata/.plugins/org.lightuml.core/build.xml:131: Execute failed: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "dot" (in directory "/Users/uname/_EclipseWorkSpace/.metadata/.plugins/org.lightuml.core"): error=2, No such file or directory org.eclipse.core.runtime.CoreException: /Users/ctcyu/_EclipseWorkSpace/.metadata/.plugins/org.lightuml.core/build.xml:131: Execute failed: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "dot" (in directory "/Users/uname/_EclipseWorkSpace/.metadata/.plugins/org.lightuml.core"): error=2, No such file or directory

I see that the program "dot" is in the Graphviz package required by UMLGraph. Since I am using MacOSX, I downloaded Graphviz's Mac package. It installs a Graphviz.app, I can't find any "dot" binaries anywhere. If I compile from source will there be binaries for the "dot" tool?

If I don't use LightUML, and typed in the absolute path to UMLGraph.jar in the "Generate Javadoc" tool in Eclipse, I get this error: javadoc: error - Cannot find doclet class UMLGraph 1 error

How do you specify custom doclets in Eclipse? Or, how do I get LightUML to work? I am using Eclipse Helios.

Christine
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I left my previous company few weeks ago and must admit that they are very happy with my consulting. My project documentation is based on UML class diagrams mainly with few other diagrams.

I used a tool from a company named O....o EclipseUML to reverse my full java project into UML. It has reversed no only the code but also all my java persistence annotations. Once I reversed my project in order to get my UML model then I have created views from my project by drag abd drop of classes and interfaces into empty class diagrams. I have finaly let many comments directly into the diagrams as note (e.g. yellow) and also left java doc visible in some diagrams as a note.

finaly I left the code with a full model attached to it and about 50 class diagrams. I did not have generated a paper documentation but if you open your project with Eclipse Helios then you have a the root of each package the related class diagrams including my notes. If you click on a class in one of the diagrams then you can see my comments written directly in the model. etc... I would say that my documentation is live synchronized with the code now and it will be very easy for a new developer to understand the full project in just few hours by navigating inside the code and looking UML explanation by a double click.

I think that paper documentation is useless because you never understand the full scope of the project. I believe that my project using UML mixed with the project and synchronized with the code is a lot more powerful.

Hope this help

UML GURU
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