NAME
    UML::Class::Simple - Render simple UML class diagrams, by loading the
    code

VERSION
    This document describes "UML::Class::Simple" 0.09 released by April 10,
    2007.

SYNOPSIS
        use UML::Class::Simple;

        # produce a class diagram for Alias's PPI
        # which has already installed to your perl:

        @classes = classes_from_runtime("PPI", qr/^PPI::/);
        $painter = UML::Class::Simple->new(\@classes);
        $painter->as_png('ppi.png');

        # produce a class diagram for your CPAN module on the disk

        @classes = classes_from_files(['lib/Foo.pm', 'lib/Foo/Bar.pm']);
        $painter = UML::Class::Simple->new(\@classes);

        # we can explicitly specify the image size
        $painter->size(5, 3.6); # in inches

        # ...and change the default title background color:
        $painter->node_color('#ffffff'); # defaults to '#f1e1f4'

        # only show public methods and properties
        $painter->public_only(1);

        $painter->as_png('my_module.png');

DESCRIPTION
    "UML::Class::Simple" is a Perl CPAN module that generates UML class
    diagrams (PNG format, GIF format, or dot source) automatically from Perl
    5 source or Perl 5 runtime.

    Perl developers can use this module to obtain pretty class diagrams for
    arbitrary existing Perl class libraries (including modern perl OO
    modules based on Moose.pm), by only a single command. Companies can also
    use the resulting pictures to visualize the project hierarchy and embed
    them into their documentation.

    The users no longer need to drag a mouse on the screen so as to draw
    figures themselves or provide any specs other than the source code of
    their own libraries that they want to depict. This module does all the
    jobs for them! :)

    You know, I was really impressed by the outputs of UML::Sequence, so I
    decided to find something to (automatically) get pretty class diagrams
    too. The images from Autodia's Graphviz backend didn't quite fit my
    needs when I was making some slides for my presentations.

    I think most of the time you just want to use the command-line utility
    umlclass.pl offered by this module (just like me). See the documentation
    of umlclass.pl for details.

SAMPLE OUTPUTS
    PPI <http://perlcabal.org/agent/images/ppi_small.png>

        (See also samples/ppi_small.png in the distribution.)

    Moose
        <http://perlcabal.org/agent/images/moose_small.png>

        (See also samples/moose_small.png in the distribution.)

    FAST
        <http://perlcabal.org/agent/images/fast.png>

        (See also samples/fast.png in the distribution.)

SUBROUTINES
    classes_from_runtime($module_to_load, $regex?)
    classes_from_runtime(\@modules_to_load, $regex?)
        Returns a list of class (or package) names by inspecting the perl
        runtime environment. $module_to_load is the *main* module name to
        load while $regex is a perl regex used to filter out interesting
        package names.

        The second argument can be omitted.

    classes_from_files($pmfile, $regex?)
    classes_from_files(\@pmfiles, $regex?)
        Returns a list of class (or package) names by scanning through the
        perl source files given in the first argument. $regex is used to
        filter out interesting package names.

        The second argument can be omitted.

    exclude_by_paths
        Excludes package names via specifying one or more paths where the
        corresponding modules were installed into. For example:

            @classes = exclude_by_paths(\@classes, 'C:/perl/lib');

            @classes = exclude_by_paths(\@classes, '/home/foo', '/System/Library');

    grep_by_paths
        Filters out package names via specifying one or more paths where the
        corresponding modules were installed into. For instance:

            @classes = grep_by_paths(\@classes, '/home/malon', './blib/lib');

    All these subroutines are exported by default.

METHODS
    "$obj->new( [@class_names] )"
        Create a new "UML::Class::Simple" instance with the specified class
        name list. This list can either be constructed manually or by the
        utility functions "classes_from_runtime" and "classes_from_files".

    "$obj->as_png($filename?)"
        Generate PNG image file when $filename is given. It returns binary
        data when $filename is not given.

    "$obj->as_gif($filename?)"
        Similar to "as_png", bug generate a GIF-format image.

    "$obj->as_dom()"
        Return the internal DOM tree used to generate dot and png. The
        tree's structure looks like this:

          {
            'classes' => [
                           {
                             'subclasses' => [],
                             'methods' => [],
                             'name' => 'PPI::Structure::List',
                             'properties' => []
                           },
                           {
                             'subclasses' => [
                                               'PPI::Structure::Block',
                                               'PPI::Structure::Condition',
                                               'PPI::Structure::Constructor',
                                               'PPI::Structure::ForLoop',
                                               'PPI::Structure::Unknown'
                                             ],
                             'methods' => [
                                            '_INSTANCE',
                                            '_set_finish',
                                            'braces',
                                            'content',
                                            'new',
                                            'refaddr',
                                            'start',
                                            'tokens'
                                          ],
                             'name' => 'PPI::Structure',
                             'properties' => []
                           },
                           ...
                        ]
          }

        You can adjust the data structure and feed it back to $obj via the
        "set_dom" method.

    "$obj->set_dom($dom)"
        Set the internal DOM structure to $obj. This will be used to
        generate the dot source and thus the PNG/GIF images.

    "$obj->as_dot()"
        Return the Graphviz dot source code generated by $obj.

    "$obj->set_dot($dot)"
        Set the dot source code used by $obj.

PROPERTIES
    "$obj->size($width, $height)"
    "($width, $height) = $obj->size"
        Set/get the size of the output images, in inches.

    "$obj->public_only($bool)"
    "$bool = $obj->public_only"
        When the "public_only" property is set to true, only public methods
        or properties are shown. It defaults to false.

    "$obj->node_color($color)"
    "$color = $obj->node_color"
        Set/get the background color for the class nodes. It defaults to
        '#f1e1f4'.

INSTALLATION
    Please download and intall a recent Graphviz release from its home:

    <http://www.graphviz.org/>

    "UML::Class::Simple" requires the HTML label feature which is only
    available on versions of Graphviz that are newer than mid-November 2003.
    In particular, it is not part of release 1.10.

    Add Graphviz's bin/ path to your PATH environment. This module needs its
    dot utility.

    Grab this module from the CPAN mirror near you and run the following
    commands:

        perl Makefile.PL
        make
        make test
        make install

    For windows users, use "nmake" instead of "make".

    Note that it's recommended to use the "cpan" utility to install CPAN
    modules.

LIMITATIONS
    *   It's pretty hard to distinguish perl methods from properties
        (actually they're both implemented by subs in perl). If you have any
        good thoughts on this issue, please drop me a line.

    *   Only the inheritance relationships are shown in the images. I
        believe other subtle relations may mess up the Graphviz layouter.
        Hence the "::Simple" suffix in this module name.

    *   Unlike Autodia, at this moment only Graphviz backend is provided.

    *   There's no way to recognize *real* perl classes automatically. After
        all, Perl 5's classes are implemented by packages. I think Perl 6
        will make my life much easier.

    *   To prevent potential naming confusion. I'm using Perl's "::"
        namespace separator in the class diagrams instead of dot (".")
        chosen by the UML standard. One can argue that following UML
        standards is more important since people in the same team may use
        different programming languages, but I think it's not the case for
        the majority (including myself) ;-)

TODO
    *   Add more unit tests.

    *   Add support for more image formats, such as as_ps, as_jpg, and etc.

    *   Plot class relationships other than inheritance on the user's
        request.

    *   Provide backends other than Graphviz.

    Please send me your wish list by emails or preferably via the CPAN RT
    site. I'll add them here or even implement them promptly if I'm also
    interested in your (crazy) ideas. ;-)

BUGS
    There must be some serious bugs lurking somewhere; if you found one,
    please report it to <http://rt.cpan.org> or contact the author directly.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
    I must thank Adam Kennedy (Alias) for writing the excellent PPI and
    Class::Inspector modules. umlclass.pl uses the former to extract package
    names from user's .pm files or the latter to retrieve the function list
    of a specific package.

    I'm also grateful to Christopher Malon since he has (unintentionally)
    motivated me to turn the original hack into this CPAN module. ;-)

SOURCE CONTROL
    You can always grab the latest version from the following Subversion
    repository:

    <http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/umlclass/>

    It has anonymous access to all.

    If you have the tuits to help out with this module, please let me know.
    I have a dream to keep sending out commit bits like Audrey Tang. ;-)

AUTHOR
    Agent Zhang <agentzh@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2006 by Agent Zhang. All rights reserved.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as perl itself.

SEE ALSO
    umlclass.pl, Autodia, UML::Sequence, PPI, Class::Inspector.

