System and method for data element tracing

A system of tracing a data element for flow analysis, comprising:

• a computer network;
• data processing device associated with at least one processor;
• a user interface operably associated with the data processing device and a graphic processing device;
• and
• at least one memory unit operatively coupled to the data processing device over the computer network and having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the data processing device to:
• receive, through the data processing device, an input of a data element to
• be traced;
• tag, through the data processing device, the data element to be traced,
• select, through the data processing device, at least one tier of an application to trace the flow of the tagged data element,
• parse, through the data processing device, the selected at least one tier of the application through a plugin associated with a software programming language,
• wherein the plugin associated with the software programming language is invoked on determination of the software programming language, and
• wherein, based on the flow, another plugin associated with another software programming language is invoked on determination of the another software programming language,
• generate a data flow graph based on the parsing to trace the data element across the at least one application tier,
• wherein at least one of an assignment and a modification associated with the tagged data element is traced,
• create, through the data processing device, a database entry for every encounter of the tagged data element in the at least one application tier,
• record, through the data processing device, an entry at the plugin associated with a software programming language, when an instance of traced data element is encountered, and
• display, through the user interface and the graphic processing device, the data flow graph.

One or more non-transitory machine-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computing system to perform a method of tracing a data element for flow analysis, the method comprising:

• receiving, through a data processing device, an input of a data element to be traced;
• tagging, through a data processing device, the data element to be traced;
• selecting, through a data processing device, at least one tier of an application to trace the flow of the tagged data element;
• parsing, through a data processing device, the selected at least one tier of the application through a plugin associated with a software programming language,
• wherein the plugin associated with the software programming language is invoked on determination of the software programming language, and
• wherein, based on the flow, another plugin associated with another software programming language is invoked on determination of the another software programming language;
• generating, through a data processing device, based on the parsing, a data flow graph to trace the data element across the at least one application tier;
• and
• creating, through a data processing device, a database entry for every encounter of the tagged data element in the at least one application tier.