We are pleased to announce the availability of PArchitect beta version for windows. PArchitect is a Php tool which simplifies managing a given Php code base. It enables you to analyze code structure, specify design rules, do effective code reviews and master evolution by comparing different versions of the code. PArchitect could be downloaded from here.

Here are some interesting PArchitect features:

CQLinq

PArchitect query the code base over LINQ queries thanks to CQLinq. For example the following CQLinq query matches all public methods that have more than 30 lines of code:

Many default queries and rules are provided when you create a new PArchitect project. They are easy to read and easy to adapt to your need.

Code Metrics

PArchitect comes with more than 80 other code metrics. Some of them are related to your code organization (the number of classes , the number of methods declared in a class…), some of them are related to code quality (complexity, percentage of comments, number of parameters, cohesion of classes,…), some of them are related to the structure of code (which types are the most used, …).

Compare builds

In software development, products are constantly evolving. Hence, developers and architects must pay attention to modifications in code bases. Modern source code repositories handle incremental development. They can enumerate differences between 2 versions of source code files.

PArchitect can tell you what has been changed between 2 builds but it does more than simple text comparison. It can distinguish between comment change and code change, between what has been added/removed and what has just been modified.

Custom reports

PArchitect can analyze source code through “PArchitect.Console.exe”. Each time it analyzes a code base, PArchitect yields a report that can inform you about the status of your development. You can customize sections shown in the report and you can even provide your own XSL sheet for full customization. You can also build your own set of CQL constraints that will be checked at each analysis. The report will warn you each time a constraint is violated. This feature makes automatic design and quality regression test a reality.

Your feedbacks are welcome to improve PArchitect, and add more interesting features.