SQLFlow: PL/SQL Multi-Diagrammatic Source Code Visualization

A major problem in software maintenance is the lack of a well-documented source code in software applications. This has led to serious difficulties in software maintenance and evolution. In particular, for those developers who are faced with the task of fixing or modifying a piece of code they never even knew existed before. Database triggers and procedures are parts of almost every application, are typical examples of badly documented software components being the hidden back end of software applications. Source code visualization is one of the heavily used techniques in the literature so as to familiarize software developers with new source code, and compensate for the knowledge-sharing problem. Therefore, a new PL/SQL flowcharting reverse engineering tool, SQLFlow, has been designed and developed. SQLFlow is a three tiers architecture tool that dominates over the currently available flowcharting tools by its powerful multi-diagrammatic and source code metrics extraction capabilities. Finally, future work is planned to integrate SQLFlow with the UML modelling standards in the software industry.