[Tutor] python reverse engineering tools

[Alan Gauld]

"amit sethi" <amit.pureenergy at gmail.com> wrote

> Can somebody tell me about any python to UML reverse engineering 
> tools .

I can't help wit the specific but I can give a word of caution on
reverse engineering from code to UML - don't expect too much!

The problem is that in a dynamic language it is very hard
for the reverse engineering to determine types of attributes
etc so everything tends to end up pointing at object - the
common superclass. That results in class diagrams that
are less than meaningful and an unreadable mess of
spaghetti pointing to one place.

Actually this tends to happen even on well designed
static language programs too since most OOP interrfaces
should be defined in terms of superclasses. UML to code
works well because the designer controls the connectivity
in the diagram, code to UML  tends to be less successful
in my experience (Lisp, Smalltalk and C++) and leaves
almost as much work as manually reverse engineering.

However if you do find something that works please
let us know!

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld