SciTools Understand is a static code analysis and code comprehension IDE designed to help developers analyze, document, and maintain complex or legacy codebases. It provides deep insights into code structure, metrics, and relationships, supporting industry standards compliance and integration with CI/CD pipelines. Understand supports a wide range of programming languages and is used in both commercial and government environments for tasks such as reverse engineering, code validation, and documentation.

Key Features

Static Code Analysis Analyzes code for issues, complexity, and standards compliance.

• Detects bugs like memory leaks, null pointer dereferences, and uninitialized values1.
• Supports industry and custom coding standards (e.g., MISRA, AutoSar, ISO 26262).

Code Comprehension and Visualization Helps users understand large and unfamiliar codebases.

• Generates flowcharts, call trees, control flow, and dependency graphs.
• Hyper-Xref technology for easy navigation of code relationships1.

Metrics and Reporting Provides quantitative insights into code quality and maintainability.

• Offers dozens of built-in metrics (complexity, dependencies, unused code).
• Customizable reporting and data export.

Documentation and Annotation Assists in documenting code without altering source files.

• In-code annotations and documentation features.
• Builds code dictionaries and entity browsers.

IDE and Integration Integrated development environment features for browsing and editing.

• Built-in IDE with entity navigation and information browser.
• Extensions for Visual Studio Code and Git integration.

API and Customization Allows advanced users to extend and automate functionality.

• Robust API for custom metrics, graphs, and tool integration.
• Customizable themes and user interface.

Benefits

Improved Code Quality and Compliance Ensures code adheres to industry standards and is free from common defects.

• Automated compliance checks and bug detection.
• Reduces risk in safety-critical and regulated environments.

Faster Onboarding and Maintenance Accelerates understanding of unfamiliar or legacy codebases.

• Visualizations and navigation tools reduce learning curve.
• Saves developer time and reduces maintenance costs.

Enhanced Collaboration and Workflow Supports team-based development and CI/CD integration.

• Git integration and annotation sharing.
• Streamlines code review and change tracking