Graphing classloading ?

[Kristian Rosenvold <kr...@gmail.com>]

I've been wondering if there exists a java tool that would let me graph
classloading, so that I can track stuff like "this class is being used only
through this library" and that might even be able to give me what-if
analysis of what would happen if I replaced that specific dependency with
another alternative. I am thinking about the run-time class loading here,
not really static analysis.

I am assuming some kind of instrumentation of the linking phase of
classloading, not even sure it's possible... ?

(I know this is slightly off-topic, but it would certainly be applicable to
making some plugins faster)

Kristian

Re: Graphing classloading ?

[Alexander Kriegisch <al...@kriegisch.name>]

Kristian,

have you tried AspectJ? It is actually quite easy to write an aspect which can do that for you.
-- 
Alexander Kriegisch


Kristian Rosenvold schrieb am 02.04.2014 09:32:

> I've been wondering if there exists a java tool that would let me graph
> classloading, so that I can track stuff like "this class is being used only
> through this library" and that might even be able to give me what-if
> analysis of what would happen if I replaced that specific dependency with
> another alternative. I am thinking about the run-time class loading here,
> not really static analysis.
> 
> I am assuming some kind of instrumentation of the linking phase of
> classloading, not even sure it's possible... ?
> 
> (I know this is slightly off-topic, but it would certainly be applicable to
> making some plugins faster)


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Re: Graphing classloading ?

[Jason van Zyl <ja...@takari.io>]

You can create an agent that will has a method that will notify you when a class is about to be loaded where you can analyze or mutate the class. You could build the graph dynamically. A decent introduction that I looked at a while ago:

http://blog.javabenchmark.org/2013/05/java-instrumentation-tutorial.html

On Apr 2, 2014, at 3:32 AM, Kristian Rosenvold <kr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been wondering if there exists a java tool that would let me graph
> classloading, so that I can track stuff like "this class is being used only
> through this library" and that might even be able to give me what-if
> analysis of what would happen if I replaced that specific dependency with
> another alternative. I am thinking about the run-time class loading here,
> not really static analysis.
> 
> I am assuming some kind of instrumentation of the linking phase of
> classloading, not even sure it's possible... ?
> 
> (I know this is slightly off-topic, but it would certainly be applicable to
> making some plugins faster)
> 
> Kristian

Thanks,

Jason

----------------------------------------------------------
Jason van Zyl
Founder,  Apache Maven
http://twitter.com/jvanzyl
http://twitter.com/takari_io
---------------------------------------------------------

Selfish deeds are the shortest path to self destruction.

 -- The Seven Samuari, Akira Kurosawa