Understanding Class Hierarchies

You will now learn more about Top-Down Browsing with SNiFF+. Top-Down browsing is useful when you have a symbol, e.g., a class, and want to learn more about its details -- where and in what context it is used. Figuratively speaking, you are coming from a more distant view of your system and are browsing down to the source code (bottom) and greater detail. You will study this type of browsing with the class

Button . During the following step by step tour, you will start with the Hierarchy Browser and learn more about the Class Browser, Source Editor and Cross Referencer.

The Hierarchy Browser is a tool where you can view the inheritance relationships of all classes in a project or group of projects. Thus, loading all classes into the Hierarchy Browser allows you to get a good overview of the complete class hierarchy. You can also restrict this information by viewing only a class and its relatives.
This chapter is about

- looking at the inheritance relationships of all classes
- viewing the class hierarchy of an individual class