Visualization of Spoon ASTs with JavaFX

A JavaFX app for visualising the Spoon abstract syntax tree of Java code (Java 11 supported). It is an alternative to the Swing-based GUI of Spoon ASTs ($ java -cp spoon...-jar-with-dependencies.jar spoon.Launcher -i class.java --gui --noclasspath)

Contributors

• @arnobl

How to run

The app requires a JDK 11. We currently do not provide any packaging of the app (jlink cannot package apps having non-modular libraries, such as Spoon).

So, to run the app, run: mvn clean package. Then go into the target/modules folder and launch: java --module-path . --add-modules=ALL-MODULE-PATH -jar visualisation-1.1.jar

Features Summary

• selection highlighting
• implicit elements masking
• export as text
• analysis level
• show properties
• open JavaDoc
• one argument to load a Java file

Feature: selection highlighting

Put the code in the text area on the left. The Spoon tree should then appear (if not, maybe the code is not ok).

You can click on a tree element on the right to select the corresponding code elements on the left. This does not work when the clicked tree item refers to a code element that does not have a line position.

You can also click on a code element in the code area to select the corresponding tree item. On the next picture, the user clicked on int:

Feature: implicit elements masking

The checkbox in the toolbar masks or shows the Java implicit elements (printed with '(implicit)' in the tree view).

Feature: export as text

The button Save exports the tree view of the current Java code in a text file.

Feature: analysis level

Users can set the analysis level: class element, statement, expression, auto.

The class element level corresponds to fields, methods, etc., of a class:

The statement level corresponds to Java code statements:

The expression level corresponds to any Java expression:

The auto level tries to detect the level automatically by starting parsing the code as a Java class (then class element, etc.):

Feature: Show Properties

When clicking on a tree node, the properties of the corresponding Spoon element are displayed in tables in a dedicated panel. The path expression (CPath) that permits the selection of the selected Spoon element is displayed at the top of the panel.

Feature: Open Javadoc

A user can click on class names in the Spoon AST view to open the corresponding Spoon Javadoc.

Feature: one argument to load a Java file

The app can take one argument: the path of a Java file to load.