JayWalker is an open-source build and deployment analysis tool which interrogates a Java application's compiled artifacts and generates static and interactive graphical reports from it. In turn, a software professional can interpret and use these reports to improve software quality and to understand the current state of the software application in question.
Although there are quite a few dependency analysis tools on the market, JayWalker is different because:
* It walks the class files rather than the source files
* It can interrogate nested archives (i.e. a JAR within a WAR within an EAR file)
* It can detect a variety of conflicts that can be identified at build and deployment time in an effort to minimize runtime dependency errors.
* It can be incorporated into a continuous integration solution so conflicts can be identified as they are introduced into source code control rather than addressing errors at runtime.
* It can be run standalone via the commandline on a system which just has a JRE installed
* Other dependency tools are package or class specific. JayWalker has support for archives, packages, and classes.
* Report attributes can be toggled on or off
* Walking across classlist elements can be done in several different ways:
o Deep (default) - recursively follow all paths
o Shallow - recursively follow paths up to and including a boundary element
o System - recursively follow paths up to a boundary element which is not part of the deployment, but is provided by a server or environment.