Migrating VFP to .NETMigrating VFP to .NETSuggestions and Tips Suggestions and Tips

A migration experience in Costa Rica Customs Office

Enrique Almeida – Conceptoealmeida@concepto.com.uy

Gustavo Morales – Costa Rica Customs Office moralescg@hacienda.go.cr

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The ProjectThe Project

• Customization of a system from Costa Rica real life.

• Concepto technological transfer to the Costa Rica development team.

• Migration of GeneXus 7.5 generating Visual FoxPro (Windows) and C/SQL (Web and WebServices) to GeneXus 8.0 and full .NET

• 400 Tables and 3200 objects

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Who are we?Who are we?

CONCEPTO– 12 years working with GeneXus. – GxAlliance members– 2001 and 2002 Best BetaTester – 2001 Early adopter of new

tecnologies .NET– ISO-9001:2000 Quality System

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Who are we?Who are we?

COSTA RICA CUSTOMS OFFICE- 650 employees.

- Invoicing U$S 1,029,000,000 6% of Costa Rica GNP.

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Why .NET and 3 Tier?Why .NET and 3 Tier?

• Resolution of Costa Rica Ministry of Finance – Security – Scalability– Need for integration with other state

entities – Conceived to keep the same

technology for the next 5 years

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What did we have?What did we have?

WIN Visual Fox Pro

WEB C/SQL Oracle

A working system developed with:

Changes in • WIN and WEB generator• Application architecture • Database

Which implied the following additional updates • GeneXus version (from 7.5 to 8.0)• Data access (ODBC– ADO.NET)

Client/Server

WIN .NET

WEB .NET 3 tier

And they requested us….SQLServer

Stages.Stages.

3 GeneXus 8.0 WIN .NET

WEB .NET ADO.Net SQLServerClient/

Server

2 GeneXus 8.0 WIN .NET

WEB .NET ODBC SQLServerClient/

Server

1 GeneXus 7.5 WIN Visual Fox Pro

WEB .NET ODBC SQLServerClient/

Server

0 GeneXus 7.5 WIN Visual Fox Pro

WEB C/SQL ODBC OracleClient/

Server

4 GeneXus 8.0 WIN .NET

WEB .NET ADO.Net SQLServer3 tier

Data Acce

ss

Archite

cture

Databas

e

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Suggestion Suggestion I:I:Planning the migration!!Planning the migration!!

• Stages– Simple and assessable steps – If a problem arises it will be easily

detected and compared with something that works correctly.

• Resources – Defining the resources required for

each stage

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Suggestion II:Suggestion II:Work group focused on the Work group focused on the

migration migration • Team working exclusively on the

migration – Anticipating problems – Evaluating new versions – Finding solutions to “standard” problems – Communicating solutions to the rest of the

work group.

• Rest of the group devoted to program new features.

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Suggestion III: Suggestion III: Studying destination platform Studying destination platform

• If we will generate C#, someone in the group must know how to program C#.

• Build a “lab” with the destination platform to perform tests and be able to learn.

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Suggestion IV: Deleting every Suggestion IV: Deleting every unnecessary thing unnecessary thing

• Deleting everything that is not used !!

• Searching for every object non- reachable from mains and delete them.

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TIP I: How do you get the group TIP I: How do you get the group of objects used in your of objects used in your

application?application?• Distributing:

– All transactions and Data Views– All used mains (Easy in 8.0)– All objects referenced by these mains

(ADD CALLED)– All dynamically called objects

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What problems may arise?What problems may arise?

Study the KB searching for “weird things” – External Programs and Stored Procedures– Commands: “SQL”, “JAVA”, “DBASE”,

“CSHARP”, “VB”– Non-STANDARD Functions – DataViews with other databases – Images/Already read files – Components: ActiveX, DLL, etc.– Calls between objects from different

generators/environments.– DBF Tables

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External Programs External Programs

• Rationalize their use – Unify the ones doing similar things – Verify if there is some GeneXus

function to do this • Reprogram them in the new

language (C#)• Test them in the new language and

platforms

TIP II – How can you see external TIP II – How can you see external programs used in your KB?programs used in your KB?

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External Programs External Programs

• In the migration to C# we had to had parameters used by GeneXus but not by the application.

• Different versions for Windows/WEB, because of these parameters.

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Stored ProceduresStored Procedures

• In ADO.NET, you must call SP with the name of the parameter variable.

• Change programming.

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““DBASE” Commands DBASE” Commands

• Search for all objects that have DBASE in the GeneXus code.– Example: DBASE wait window 'Presione <ESC> para cancelar' TIMEOUT 5 if lastkey()=27 &SALGO='S' return Endif

• This programming method should be avoided.

• Substitute DBASE by CSHARP, and program equivalent code.

TIP III: What objects use TIP III: What objects use DBASE command?DBASE command?

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Suggestion V:Suggestion V:Use XPZ files (Distribute)Use XPZ files (Distribute)

• Study distribution XML files format (within XPZ)

• “Search and Replace” tool with regular expressions

• Grep• (SR) www.funduc.com.

– Use them to search for the objects containing a specific string.

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Functions Functions

• Knowing the list of functions supported in the destination platform.

• Detecting the non-supported functions or the ones that have changed their meaning in the destination platform.

• Searching for GeneXus Non-STANDARD or non-native functions to find and alternative for them.

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TIP IV: How to find objects that TIP IV: How to find objects that use non-standard functions?use non-standard functions?

• Consolidate it in an empty KB with the Function property so that it will not accept non-standard functions.

DESIGN PROTOTYPE

• Review everything giving errors and warnings • Correct them

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Suggestion VI: Study all Suggestion VI: Study all Upgrades Release Notes Upgrades Release Notes

• Searching for corrected errors

• New features

• Changes in – Functions– Properties– Commands– Configuration

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ActiveX ControlsActiveX Controls

• They are not supported in .NET generator

• Reprogram them with native controls

• Keep some programs in Visual FoxPro.

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Proposed Process Proposed Process

• Delete everything you do not need to migrate

• Distribute original model • Consolidate problems in empty KB and

solve them• Specify problems and solve them• Generate, compile and solve problems • Compare execution with previous model

and fix differences • Document errors and report them

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ConclusionsConclusions

• Migrating is unavoidable

• But……– It takes work – I takes planning – It uses resources

• It allows the incorporation of new features

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Tips and Suggestions Tips and Suggestions

Any question?

Enrique Almeida – Conceptoealmeida@concepto.com.uy

Gustavo Morales – Costa Rica Customs OfficeMoralescg@hacienda.go.cr