MaintainJ V3.0 Beta

1. New features

The major enhancement in this milestone is to show the context of each method call. It shows the method call arguments, return value, source  instances of the call. These values are shown in the properties view when the call is selected in the sequence diagram. The values of basic data types like String, int are shown in tool tip when mouse is hovered over a method call.

The other change in this version is that the trace file must be placed in a special project created by the wizard at File->New->Project->MaintainJ->MaintainJ Trace File Project. This project creates an embedded derby database to store the trace file information. Having the trace file data in database serves two purposes.

a) It reduces the memory usage as the entire trace file data need not be loaded into memory.
b) It helps to search for a method or data like a specific value of a parameter. This search can operate on a trace file or across trace files. The search feature will be added in V3.1.

There is no need to manually change the aop.xml as in the first milestone release.

2. Screenshots

The values of basic data types like String, int are shown in tool tip when mouse is hovered over a method call.

3.The download links

The installation procedure is same as it is for the release version. Check the quick start guide for detailed installation instructions.

MaintainJ Feature Update url for Eclipse 3.3 and above: http://www.maintainj.com/updates/3.0.1
MaintainJ Feature Update url for Eclipse 3.2: http://www.maintainj.com/updates/3.0.1/3.2
MaintainJ J2EE Server Feature Update url: http://www.maintainj.com/updates/3.0.1/server

MaintainJ Feature Zip (for Eclipse 3.3 and above): MaintainJ_3.0.1.zip
MaintainJ Feature Zip (for Eclipse 3.2): MaintainJ_3.0.1_ForEclipse_3.2.zip
MaintainJ J2EE Server Feature: MaintainJ_J2EE_Launcher_3.0.1.zip

MaintainJ.war to instrument J2EE applications: MaintainJ.war

November 4, 2009

MaintainJ V3.0 Milestone 1

1. New features

The major enhancement in this milestone is to show the context of each method call. It shows the method call arguments, return value, source and target instances of the call. These values are shown in the properties view when the call is selected in the sequence diagram.

2. Screenshot

If the data is primitive, String or single dimension arrays of primitive or String, they are displayed. If the data is an object, only the first level primitive attributes of that object are shown.

3. How it works

This version works the same as the release version in every other way except showing the context data. By default it does not log the context of a calls to the trace file. You need to do a small change to the generated aop.xml to log context data. The location of the aop.xml can be found here. Remember to select the 'Do not regerate?aop.xml' checkbox at the bottom of the Aspect tab?not to overwrite your changes.

3.1 For J2SE applications or any application that you start with main() method, the third line in the generated aop.xml looks as below.
<concrete-aspect name="com.maintainj.inst.J2SEAspect" extends="com.maintainj.aspect.J2SEExecutionAspect">

You need to change the super aspect name to J2SEExecutionDataAspect as below.
<concrete-aspect name="com.maintainj.inst.J2SEAspect" extends="com.maintainj.aspect.J2SEExecutionDataAspect">

3.2 For J2EE applications,
1. Change the super aspect name from ExecutionAspect to ServletDataAspect
2. Add -Xset:weaveJavaxPackages=true to 'weaver options'
3. Include 'javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet' to instrumentation scope.

Here is a sample aop.xml after the change:

<aspectj>
  <aspects>
    <concrete-aspect name="com.maintainj.inst.J2EEAspect" extends="com.maintainj.aspect.ServletDataAspect">
      <pointcut name="anyExecution" expression="execution( * *.*(..)) || execution( *.new(..))"/>
    </concrete-aspect>
  </aspects>
  <weaver options="-proceedOnError -Xset:weaveJavaxPackages=true">
    <include within="org.jfree.chart..*"/>
    <include within="javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet"/>
    <include within="com.maintainj..*"/>
  </weaver>
</aspectj>

For J2EE applications, the HttpServletRequest parameter of the service method shows the request parameters.

4.The download links

MaintainJ Feature Update url: http://www.maintainj.com/updates/3.0
MaintainJ J2EE Server Feature Update url: http://www.maintainj.com/updates/3.0/server
MaintainJ Feature Zip: MaintainJ_3.0.0.zip
MaintainJ J2EE Server Feature: MaintainJ_J2EE_Launcher_3.0.0.zip
MaintainJ.war to instrument J2EE applications: MaintainJ.war

5. What's coming?

1.In this release context data is shown in the properties view. This will also be shown in the diagram itself - either below the call or in the tooltip popup.
2. For large diagrams of say 6000 calls, lot of memory is taken up because all context data is loaded into memory when the diagram is rendered. This has to be better managed.
3. The data for JDBC calls - the sql statement itself and the data will be added. The HttpServletRequest parameters in the service() method are shown in this release.
4. The other major enhancement for V3 is search capability.
5. And finally the important impact analysis capability will be added.

Keep checking for these exciting new features of MaintainJ!