Fast sketching tools for drawing C/C++ structs, pointers, etc...
- by tomasorti
Hi.
I would like to know what do you use to sketch relations between different entities in C/C++. This can be a very broad issue, so I'll try to clarify a bit more my question and give an example.
I'm looking for something that is simple enough as a user, and let me sketch easily containers, pointers, etc... in an informal way.
The aim is to document some structs relations to pass them to junior developers. A look at the drawings is supposed to accelerate the understanding of the code.
My solutions at this moment are to use:
1) Paper & pencil.
2) Microsoft PowerPoint/Word Autoshapes.
3) Freeware Dia.
Other ones could be:
4) Microsoft Visio, but my company does not own licenses.
5) UML tools. I don't want to go this way. This is what I mean a more formal solution.
I know tools like Rational Rose are great, and I tried boUML and violet and they are fine in some parts, but I prefer the flexibility of options 2) or 3).
Finally, let me write down a more concrete example:
Let's say I what to sketch a map that contains another map as the mapped value, and that one contains a struct as the mapped value, that holds a vector of pointers of a type and a pointer to other type. Also, there exist other structs that hold pointers to the objects pointed by the previous map, so there are objects pointed from different places.
This is just one example I have, but you can easily come with one from you experience.
What would you use to sketch this example or another similar you have dealt with?
Best regards,
Tomas.
