Created by James Hurrell on Apr 17, 2023

Introduction

Modules are used extensively in the CAST Imaging / CAST Dashboards and other CAST features as a means to configure analysis results for a given Application into meaningful groups or sets for display purposes. Indeed, objects that are not part of a module:

  • cannot be included in Transaction/Function Point configurations
  • cannot be seen in the CAST dashboards
  • cannot be included in Architecture Models

The definition of modules for a given Application also impacts the accessibility and usability of application assessment results. Specifically, in the CAST quality and quantity model, the module is the smallest assessment entity. The definition of a module can improve the relevance of the analysis results by linking modules to development teams and application functional layers etc.

Default module generation strategy

By default, Console uses the following module generation strategies (note that Modules are "attached" to the application (not the version)):

  • Console ≥ 2.8: "Full content", i.e. one module will always be created for your entire Application unless you change the settings
  • All other releases: "Per Technology", i.e. one module per technology discovered will always be created unless you change the settings (source code from all Analysis Units in a given technology will be placed in one module).

You can view the strategy in place using the Application - Config - Modules screen. Move to the  Console screen if you are not already there:

Locate the Application and click it:

Then access the Application - Config - Modules screen to view all the Modules that have been created for the Application during the analysis. First check that all Modules you require are present:

Check the content

Then, to check the content of the Modules, click the Edit button next to the Module you want to inspect:

Click the Check Content button to load the content of the Module direct from the Analysis schema:

Objects matched by the Module and filters will be displayed in two panels to the right:

Summary

Displays a list of objects matched by the filter (by object type and number of objects matched).

Details

Displays a detailed list of each object matched by the filter, including Name, Full Name and Path.

Click to enlarge

Modify the strategy if necessary

You can change the default strategy if necessary by selecting the option you prefer - this requires a new analysis, however and will impact your existing results:

CAST recommends that you choose an "automatic" module generation type (Full content or Per analysis unit) unless you know what you want to achieve by using a manually created module.