Show Calling Dependency

A function is provided that shows which functions a script/function calls

Description

The script shows the calling sequence of a function or a script. Given the script/function name, this utility

1. displays a list of functions that are called.

2. generates a .dot file

3. uses Graphviz/dot tool to generate an .eps file that shows the dependency relationship of the functions called directly or indirectly.

4. uses gv to display the .eps file.

In order for the graphical display to work, it needs

1. The "dot" program in Graphviz. See
http://www.graphviz.org/

2. The gv (ghostview) program to show the EPS file.

System functions (those that are not in a directory whose full path name contains the user id) are ignored.

• Acknowledgements: This submission has inspired the following:; dep
• MATLAB release: MATLAB 5.2 (R10)
• Other requirements: 1. The "dot" program in Graphviz. See http://www.graphviz.org/ 2. The gv (ghostview) program to show the EPS file. The program is written for Unix like environment. It may not work on other platforms.

[Daniel Ennis]

It appears to work well. It took a bit of looking to get dot installed and linked, but that isn't the author's fault. This link may be helpful for others: http://www.ryandesign.com/graphviz/faq.php#path

The program works well, but could be improved. For large programs sometimes many lines are drawn between the same two blocks. This indicates multiple calls between blocks, but can clutter the diagram a bit. Nice tool

[Sven Probst]

"user = getenv('USER')", l.17 depends on the environment variable being set which is not always true. I prefer relying on JAVA:
user = char(java.lang.System.getProperty('user.name'));

Nevertheless this is a error prone way to distinguish between matlab environment and user functions as the user name must not be part of the user defined function - as in my case.
I changed to using the matlabroot function.
Line 17 changes from
user = getenv('USER');
to
matlabRootDir = matlabroot;
Line 21 changes from
if isempty(findstr(name, user))
to
if ~isempty(strmatch(matlabRootDir, name))

Adding these command line arguments to the call of dot.exe
-Gpage="7.5,10.9" -Gorientation="landscape"
results in DIN A4 page breaks.
Very helpful tool !

[Zhengdao Wang]

Sven Probst: Your suggestions have been incorporated. Thanks.

Daniel Ennis: The duplicated links are removed (hopefully). It was due to multiple calling returns from depfun of Matlab. Thanks.

The new version number is: Thu Aug 16 22:29:55 CDT 2007. Version number is available in the .m file.

[E Comment]

I couldn't get it to work under windows (XP) environment- It looks like a good tool and it would be great to have a version for windows as well. Perhaps I'll look into it.

[Glenn Gomes]

It also looks like it is indexing native MATLAB functions; something you do not want.
I generated a .jpg from the using GrafViz, which was unreadable.

[Lukas Lansky]

It worked as expected! Few suggestions:
1. Nicer output to GraphViz, than this simple one. It could have several modes.
2. Export only .dot file to the current directory option.