Get a handle on unfamiliar code by extracting and visualising the natural language programmers used when writing it.

An example generated from a multiplayer boardgame written in Java.

<language>-code <source-file-or-directory>* | code-to-words -k <keyword-file> ... -s <stop-word-file> ... | wordcloud -o <output-file>.png

E.g.

java-code project/src/ | code-to-words -k java-keywords -s cargo-cult-java-stop-words | wordcloud -o project.png

The stop-keyword files and stop-word files must have a single word per line.

The words in keyword-files are filtered out after identifiers have been extracted from the language but before any further processing.

The words in stop-word-files are filtered out after the identifiers have been split into separate words at underscores or camel-case boundaries and normalised to lowercase.

The wordcloud command has the following options:

• -o output-file: output file name (image type is determined from the extension)
• -s widthxheight : width of the output image

• C: c-code
  • c-keywords: most C keywords
  • c-primitive-type-keywords: ignores basic C types (int, char, etc.)
• C++: c++-code
  • c++-keywords: most C++ keywords
  • c-primitive-type-keywords: ignores basic C types (int, char, etc.)
• Haskell: haskell-code
  • haskell-keywords
• HTML: html-text
  • no stop words file provided. Stop words files for various natural languages can be found on the web.
• Java: java-code.
  • java-keywords: most keywords
  • java-primitive-type-keywords: ignores primitive types
  • cargo-cult-java-stop-words: ignores get, set, bean etc. Use with the -s flag.
• JavaScript: javascript-code.
  • javascript-keywords: ignores keywords and reserved words (from ECMA-262 Edition 3)
  • java-primitive-type-keywords: ignores primitive types
  • nodejs-globals-keywords: ignores node.js globals
• Python: python-code
  • python-keywords: most keywords
• Ruby: ruby-code
  • ruby-keywords
• Scala: scala-code
  • scala-keywords
• PHP: php-code
  • php-keywords: shows some keywords that may be the result of poor programming practice.
  • php-strict-keywords: ignores all keywords
• Smalltalk: smalltalk-code
  • smalltalk-keywords: ignores keywords

Example visualisations of various applications are in the examples/ directory.

To extract text from source code:

• Bash
• Gnu Sed
• Grep
• Awk

To extract text from HTML:

• w3m

To visualise the results

• Java 1.6

It should work on any desktop Linux. It does not yet work on MacOS unless you install the Gnu command-line tools.

To compile the Java wordcloud generator:

• JDK 1.6
• Gnu Make