Profiling Java: Eclipse, Hyades for generating UML-like sequence diagrams running a Tomcat-Servlet-Framework

we built up a servlet framework using turbine,velocity and oracle proprietary BC4J. Latter comes from oracle to access oracle. nowadays oracle seem to prefer toplink. we use tomcat as servletcontainer. development occured in teamwork over some years now and we have nearly no technical documentation. so analyzing how it works is a common activity during bug fixing or to due to the growing application. my first approach was to use Poseidon for UML. Debugging using Eclipse and a manual drawing of sequence or activity diagrams to document whats going on. this kind of work is a little bit annyoing. so read about profiling tools (not commercial ones), and i noticed that someone mentioned that Hyades would be able to generate UML sequence diagrams. Some URLs about testing/profiling Java:

j2ee test tools (german language)

open-source-profilers-for-java provides an excellent listing

Hyades official Site

the are some prerequisites (mainly correct versions) and some minor configuration is to be done if you want a running environment. At this point of time, latest release is 1.3.0. My working installation is using some older distributions:

Eclipse 2.1.3 (File: eclipse-SDK-2.1.3-win32.zip)

Stable build 1.2.0 (File: hyades.rac.nt_1.2.0_20031219_0843.zip hyades.runtime_1.2.0_20031219_0843.zip). Rac is Hyades Data Collection Engine.

XSD File: xsd_1.1.1.1_20031120_1149WL.zip

GEF File: GEF-runtime-I20031015.zip

EMF File: emf_1.1.1_20031120_1149WL.zip

This is for a W2000 Platform. You have to use a JDK1.3. You have to be careful when sampling data (monitoring), GUI is slow for a large amount of data. Hyades 1.3 lists a paging feature: "Paging mechanism in Log View (improves UI responsiveness for large logs)". Maybe this is worth to be tested.

Theres a small installation guide available, my installation was successful with it. to install and use the profiling and logging features of the Hyades project

starting tomcat is done via Menue entry Profile=>Launch=>Java Process. Provide the following data:
Class name "org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap"
Class path "C:\eclipse-SDK-2.1.3-win32\workspace\kat3\tdk\bin\bootstrap.jar"
Parameters "start"
VM Args: "-Dcatalina.base=C:\\eclipse-SDK-2.1.3-win32\\workspace\\kt\\tdk -Dcatalina.home=C:\\eclipse-SDK-2.1.3-win32\\workspace\\kt\\tdk"

Another wise step is to define your own filter set. This is done via Window=>Preference. tree control: Profiling and Logging=>Profiling. i excluded mainly oracle packages (oracle.xml.*, oracle.jdbc.*, oracle.jbo.* ...)

After you samled some data (Use profiling monitors rightclick menue to start/pause monitoring) use the object interactions or class interactions to access the UML like sequence diagrams.

See screenshot