What is Understand?
Understand is a powerful code comprehension and static analysis tool designed to help developers, teams, and organizations quickly understand, analyze, and improve their software projects. It offers deep static analysis, cross-references, customizable graphs, metrics, and industry-standard compliance checks, all accessible through an intuitive interface or via a robust API for automation.
The tool now includes AI-powered insights that provide detailed explanations of code, highlight potential issues, and suggest improvements, making it easier to onboard new team members and maintain legacy code. Understand is certified for safety-critical standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508, and EN 50128, and is trusted by over 20,000 developers worldwide, including organizations like NASA and the U.S. Navy.
Features
- AI-Powered Code Summaries: Get detailed explanations of code, highlighting issues and suggesting improvements.
- Static Code Analysis: Check code against industry standards like MISRA C/C++ and AUTOSAR with over 3000 customizable rules.
- Comprehensive Graphs: Visualize code with Control Flow, Call Trees, Dependency, Butterfly, UML Class, and more.
- Bug Hunter: Detect and fix dangerous bugs such as dangling pointers, memory leaks, and null pointer dereferences with step-by-step walkthroughs.
- Metrics: Receive detailed metrics at file, class, and entity levels to identify problem areas.
- Cross-Referencing: Navigate complex code relationships bi-directionally with Hyper-Xref technology.
- Virtual Debugger: Step through code to try out different scenarios and edge cases.
- Code Comparison: Compare two project states by files, folders, entities, or architectures.
- Automation & API: Create custom graphs, metrics, and lexical analysis; integrate with CI/CD pipelines.
- VS Code Extension: Access Understand features directly within Visual Studio Code.
Use Cases
- Onboarding new developers to quickly understand unfamiliar codebases
- Analyzing and maintaining legacy code with dependency analysis and call trees
- Ensuring code compliance with industry standards like MISRA and AUTOSAR
- Detecting and fixing dangerous bugs before they reach production
- Visualizing code architecture for better team communication
- Measuring code quality and complexity using detailed metrics
- Automating code analysis as part of CI/CD pipelines
- Comparing code versions to review changes and regressions
FAQs
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How much does Understand cost?
Understand is sold as an annual subscription with a cost breakdown between $100-$120 USD per month, with a minimum term of 12 months. Prices may vary depending on geographical location and number of licenses required. -
Is Understand free for educational use?
Yes, Understand is free for students and teachers to use for educational purposes, such as teaching a class on code maintenance or gathering metrics for a thesis. -
How can I share Understand's results with my team?
The developer license includes features for productivity but note that some capabilities like command line automation, API access, and exporting results are not available in that license. For team sharing, contact sales for alternative licensing options. -
How are licenses provided?
Licenses are usually provided via an online licensing solution (similar to Adobe or Office 365). For offline or secure lab environments, solutions are available at the same cost.
