The aim of FlowchartParser is to analyze simple programs and convert them into flowcharts for easier visualization. It functions as a command line tool consisting of 4 python scripts, including an analyzer as well as a (work in progress) visualizer.
There are 5 .py files that come with FlowchartParser, flowchart.py (the parser), display.py (the walkthrough), visualizer.py (the aptly named visualizer) and regexes.py and node.py (library files). flowchart.py is the main analysis script. Usage for flowchart.py is as follows:
python3 flowchart.py my_script.py output_file.flow
The parser will analyze the contents of my_script.py and attempt to generate a flowchart, the data for which will be stored in output_file.flow. Note that the contents of output_file.flow are serialized; that is, the file is a binary and is not meant to be read by a machine, not a human. There is a second display.py script that can be used for this purpose. Usage for display.py is as follows:
python3 display.py output_file.flow
The walkthrough will read the contents of output_file.flow and reconstruct the flowchart, and then display a step by step textual walkthrough of the flowchart (this can be useful for debugging).
Usage for visualizer.py is identical to that of display.py:
python3 visualizer.py output_file.flow
The visualizer will once again reconstruct the flowchart stored in output_file.flow and use pygame to draw a picture of the flowchart on the screen.
An examples directory is provided with the installation of FlowchartParser. This consists of two subdirectories, codes and charts. As is probably evident, codes consists of several basic python scripts that each contain code to demonstrate a key feature of FlowchartParser. For each .py file in codes, there is a corresponding .flow file in charts, which can be viewed using the visualizer.py script as explained above.
FlowchartParser is currently an alpha release. This means that there are likely many bugs; if you notice one, please submit an issue to this repository with a replicable level of detail. The following are some features to look for in future releases:
- Support for syntax other than python
- Support for more complex python syntax (function definitions, etc.)
A graphics frontend for the visualizer instead of a text-based walkthrough- Improved graphics for the visualizer (so that text doesn't run off the block, etc.)
- Reverser (parse flowchart to generate code)