Part of the complexity in an enterprise application stems from an application relying on other pieces of code and libraries for its functionality; and part of an application's complexity is the result of the code base growing in size and interdependencies.

Dependency analysis tools provide a good insight into the internal dependencies of a code base, but few tools can give a complete, easy-to-grasp picture of all the dependencies an application relies on, including external ones. JetBrains, maker of the popular IntelliJ multi-language IDE, recently released a new tool, Structure101, that provides both internal code dependency analysis, and also a visual overview of external dependencies of an enterprise application.

Because Structure 101 integrates with the code-editing and code management features of the IDE, it lets a developer or architect set some limits about the complexity metrics of a project. It also lets developers change the structural changes occurring to a code base over time.

Notable features in Structure101 include:

• Dependency management. See the dependencies within your code-base at any level, such as: method to method, function to type, class to class, package to class, directory to directory, jar to jar,...
• Dependency analysis. For any dependency, at any level of composition, discover the dependency's source with the click of the mouse...
• Impact analysis. Find out the impact of making a code-change, replacing a library, etc., before the team changes a single line of code.
• Understanding unstructured code. Even where the code-base has become overly complex and unstructured, Structure101 gives you ways to cut through the raw structural data and make sense of it all. For example, auto-partitioning isolates tangled items and natural clusters and dependency matrices make large graphs more readable...
• Deep structural analysis. Structure101 lets you view your code organized into different hierarchies (e.g. by package or by jar). It also lets you take slices through the whole code-base at different levels (e.g. class, package or design). "Tagging" lets you see how items in one hierarchy or slice map to other hierarchies or slices.
• Applying structural transformations. Use simple mapping expressions to transform the model hierarchy. For example, isolate test code, combine API and implementation packages, etc.

What dependency analysis tools do you like?