Visualize project dependencies in Visual Studio

Sometimes it is nice to see project dependencies in Visual Studio in a visual form, so as to assess complexity of a new project you get involved with. Here's a way to do it:

• Start Visual Studio


• Open your solution


• Start the data collecting macro (its code is at the bottom of the post)


• The macro will generate a text file with name [your solution name].dot


• Download and install open source program called Graphviz. It is a graph vizualization software. It takes a text file of a simple format as input.


• Start Graphviz and open the .dot file in it. Graphviz will create an image visualizing dependencies of your application for you. You will get something like this:

Imports System

Imports EnvDTE

Imports EnvDTE80

Imports EnvDTE90

Imports System.Diagnostics

Imports VSLangProj

Imports System.IO



Public Module Diagram



    Sub ProjectDependency()

        Dim writer As New StreamWriter(DTE.Solution.FileName & ".dot")

        writer.WriteLine("digraph """ & DTE.Solution.FullName & """ {")

        writer.WriteLine("  rankdir=LR")

        writer.WriteLine("  size=""10,10""")

        writer.WriteLine("  node [color=lightblue2, style=filled]")



        For Each project As Project In DTE.Solution.Projects

            NavProj(project, writer)

        Next



        writer.WriteLine("}")

        writer.Dispose()

    End Sub



    Sub NavProj(ByVal proj As Project, ByRef writer As StreamWriter)

        For Each projectItem As ProjectItem In proj.ProjectItems

            If Not projectItem Is Nothing Then

                If Not projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing Then

                    writer.WriteLine("  """ & proj.Name & """->""" & projectItem.Name & """")

                    NavProj(projectItem.SubProject, writer)

                End If

            End If

        Next

    End Sub



End Module

Ошибся блогом. Потом перенсу в ProgBlog.

Кстати, Graphviz создали в AT&T Research, подразделении AT&T, отвечающем за разнообразные научные инновации в бизнесе компании. В свою бытность программистом в AT&T мне довелось плотно общаться с некоторыми людьми из AT&T Research. Хотя конкретно с теми, кто написал Graphviz, я не знаком.