Latest News

Media 5 — Your Data, Your Way 1

First-Class Customer Support — An Ongoing Commitment 2

Speedware Survey Coming Soon 2

Chris Koppe — HP e3000 Contributor of the Year 3

Recent Successes 3

An IT Makeover — Protecting Your IT Investment with Legacy Modernization 5

Technical Articles

Media V5 boasts new look, new functionalityIf it’s been a while since you had a look at Media, you’d better sit down. 6

Keeping score with Media V5.1Media V5.1 includes powerful scorecard functionality that analyzes measures and compares them to target values. 7

New architecture for Media Web V5.1With Media Web V5.1, it’s simpler than ever to display dashboards through a browser. 9

Media powers Activant Performance Driver SuiteWhen Speedware joined Activant Solutions Inc., it was apparent that Speedware’s OLAP dashboard tool, Media, would complement Activant’s ERP offerings. 10

Using ACUCOBOL with AMXWACUCOBOL-GT from Acucorp, Inc. is a comprehensive development system that integrates very well into the AMXW development and production environments. 11

Debugging in AMXW — in nlsh, Micro Focus, ACUCOBOL and edWinHaving migrated your HP e3000 application to a new environment, you may be required to do some debugging. 14

Volume 16Number 1

Fall 2006

Media 5 — Your Data, Your WayHave you seen Media 5, the latest version of Speedware’s analytical business intelligence tool?

The new functionality and enhanced graphical interface of the Media 5 dashboard lets users view and understand their corporate data more quickly and easily so they can make better-informed business decisions. And the newly-designed Media Web makes your dashboards available over the web.

Here’s what some of our users have to say about the new Media:

As a Media user for the last 14 years, I am extremely impressed with the new features. The enhanced graphical presentation combined with themes and improved functionality for chart properties has exceeded my expectations.

- Denis Cartier, Groupe Promutuel

The entire user experience and presentation of Media 5.0 is outstanding! The new version empowers the user to create dashboards with an expanded choice of colors, images, formats and graphical styles. The result is a wide variety of very impressive charts. From a user standpoint, Media 5.0 is light years ahead of the pack.

- Chris Veal, accounting consultant

Fall 2006

2

First-Class Customer Support — An Ongoing CommitmentSpeedware’s customer support organization has once again received certification under the prestigious Support Center Practices (SCP) certification program.

“By achieving its sixth SCP certification, Speedware is demonstrating its continuous commitment to make service a differentiator

for our business, our solutions, and our customers,” said Maria Anzini, Speedware’s Director of Customer Service and Product Support. “Speedware is extremely proud of this

accomplishment and we consider this a win for our company, our employees, and especially our customers.”

By meeting all the requirements of the comprehensive audit, Speedware will continue to provide customer service that delivers on high levels of operational performance, customer satisfaction, and reliability. “We take tremendous pride in earning SCP Certification for a sixth year. The SCP Standard enables us to measure the quality and effectiveness of our services and helps us to continually improve our ability to deliver world-class support to our customers.”

Speedware achieved certification after an extensive audit of their Montreal, Quebec support center. SCP Certification quantifies the effectiveness of customer support based upon a stringent set of performance standards and represents best practices in the industry.

“Speedware’s support team demonstrated their continued commitment to delivering outstanding service quality by achieving SCP Certification for the sixth time,” said Gordy Stauffer, SCP Auditor. “Speedware has continued to drive improvement in all aspects of their support operation resulting in a high level of customer satisfaction and world class programs.”

Speedware joins the ranks of other leading technology companies that have achieved the sought-after SCP Certification, including DoubleClick, EMC, Lockheed Martin Corporation, McKesson Corporation, NCR Teradata, Nokia, Novell Incorporated, Rockwell Automation, and Sage Software among others. Currently, over two hundred technology support organizations around the world participate in the SCP program.

LATE

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Speedware — Division of Activant Solutions Inc.™6380 Cote de Liesse Road Suite 110St. Laurent, Quebec Canada H4T 1E3 Tel: (514) 747-7007Fax: (514) 747-3380Email: info@speedware.com

Speedware Support business hours:

As always — 9 to 5 your time1.800.361.6782 (US, Canada)(+1) 514.747.9494 (Int)0.800.96.77.14 (UK)(+1) 514.747.3380 (Fax)

Email: support@speedware.com

Support web site:www.speedware.com/sws

Speedware, Visual Speedware, Speedware Autobahn II, MobileDev, EasyReporter, DBmotion, Media, Esperant, Decision Server and AMXW are trademarks of Speedware Ltd. All other products are trademarks of their respective manufacturers.

© 2006 Speedware Ltd.

SPE-MKPROF16-01

Speedware survey coming soonWe are currently finalizing our annual Customer Satisfaction Survey and preparing to send it to all our supported customers. We hope you will take a few minutes to complete the survey, providing us with your opinion on our performance over the past year.

Everyone who takes part in the survey will be entered in a draw to win a cool techie prize. And, as always, your opinions and suggestions will be taken into consideration as we develop programs throughout the upcoming year.

Maria Anzini

Fall 2006

3

Chris Koppe with HP’s David Wilde and Jennie Hou

Chris Koppe — HP e3000 Contributor of the YearWe are pleased to announce that Chris Koppe, Speedware’s Director of Marketing and Business Development, is the 2006 recipient of the HP e3000 Contributor of the Year award. The award was presented to Chris by David Wilde, HP e3000 Business Manager, at HP’s annual Technology Forum held this year in Houston, Texas.

The HP e3000 Contributor Award was created to recognize outstanding members of the HP e3000 community who are not employees of the Hewlett-Packard Company. The recipient is selected by HP with input from past recipients according to criteria that include outstanding contribution back to the e3000 community, superior results over the long term and going beyond their primary responsibilities.

While surprised at winning the award, Chris was pleased by the recognition. “Although the HP e3000 community has played a large role in my professional life, I never expected it would lead to my receiving an award,” he said.

“It highlights the importance of understanding customers’ needs and ensuring that customer satisfaction is the number one priority in any migration.”

As Speedware’s Director of Marketing, Chris is very knowledgeable regarding the planning and execution requirements for HP e3000 transition strategies. His participation in user groups

as well as his long term sustained involvement illustrates his dedication to the e3000 community. Chris has been with Speedware for over 18 years and has played an integral role in our success in providing cost-effective, end-to-end migration solutions for HP e3000 customers.

Recent SuccessesSpeedware’s Professional Services Organization has been working hard to help companies migrate their applications from the HP e3000 platform to modern, open systems. Following is a short summary of some of the migration projects that we have recently completed.

Chandler Unified School District

The Chandler Unified School District is located in the Southeastern part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Chandler Unified decided that it wanted to increase the efficiency and user-friendliness of its current software environment. The staff’s goal at Chandler Unified was to independently implement a database migration off the HP e3000. Additionally, they required a solution that would enable them to introduce online Speedware reporting procedures to its administration.

As a result of Speedware’s migration expertise in providing custom training and tailored guidelines, the staff at Chandler Unified was successful in achieving their migration objectives quickly and easily. The final outcome for the Chandler’s Quick Start Migration project was one which met all specified customer requirements and delivery dates.

Fall 2006

4

“Our decision to follow through on our HP e3000 migration was made easy once Speedware came on board. The cost-effective solutions and specialized training they provided to our staff gave us the know-how and tools to carry out our particular objectives effectively and on time.”

- J.A. Burkes, Programmer Analyst for I.S., Chandler Unified School District

Flint Industries

Flint Industries provides construction and oilfield services worldwide through various subsidiaries. Flint Industries’ primary goal was the acquisition of skills required for a platform migration effort. Consequently, the company requested that emphasis be placed on training in migration methodology rather than on providing them with a fully functional migrated application since they would be ultimately responsible for a substantial amount of the work involved in the migration project.

As a result of Speedware’s Quick Start Migration expertise and Flint’s close involvement in the process, migration goals were accomplished on schedule. The guidance and training provided by Speedware allowed Flint to plan their migration path forward and budget accordingly.

“Taking on the migration of our HP e3000 applications would not have been possible without Speedware. They analyzed our skill sets, determined the areas that we would need training on and customized training for the tools and technologies that were vital in enabling to us meet our goals. In fact, thanks to Speedware, our project was completed ahead of schedule.”

- Ben Thorman, Application Developer Manager, Flint Industries

Pitney Bowes — Open Seas

Pitney Bowes Inc. provides office technologies and services that help companies gain efficiencies and capitalize on opportunities. Open Seas (UK) Ltd. offers a full range of consulting and training services for their own products and the partner products they represent. Notably, Open Seas serves as a partner and reseller of Speedware migration solutions and services.

Pitney Bowes wanted to transition to a new environment using a reliable and cost-effective method, with minimal risk involved. It was crucial to find a solution that could convert code with the least amount of downtime so the company could maintain its competitive edge.

As a result of using Speedware’s AMXW migration tool, Pitney Bowes was able to convert to its new HP-UX environment quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Additionally, the staff training and knowledge transfer regarding the migration process enhanced the understanding of the steps involved to fulfill corporate transition objectives.

“Both the services and training provided by Open Seas and the installation of Speedware’s AMXW migration tool resulted in a migration project that exceeded our expectations. There was absolutely no interruption in workflow and business continued as usual.”

- Graham Rose, IT Manager, Pitney Bowes

Fall 2006

5

An IT Makeover — Protecting Your IT Investment with Legacy ModernizationWhether it be exciting features on our new cell phone, innovative advances for hand-held computing devices, or the newest technologies for our computers, we as consumers have come to expect and appreciate the technological advances regularly appearing in the industry. As business people, some of these advances can impact our organizations in unexpected ways.

Keeping up with the pace of technology is a challenging necessity facing most businesses today. Many companies have invested substantial resources and effort into developing applications that are critical to their day-to-day businesses, but which have become outdated as a result of current advances in software languages and platforms. Adopting leading-edge systems and technology can be prohibitively expensive and can represent a significant effort. Moreover, the company also risks losing the highly-customized business logic of their original applications. Yet the advantages of new technologies are tempting: lower maintenance and operational costs, modern user interfaces and systems that are more open and flexible.

Legacy modernization becomes an option when companies inevitably find the cost and risk of continuing to do business on older technologies too great. Legacy modernization can extend the life of older systems by maintaining current functionality and protecting the investment in current technology and business rules, while moving to modern technologies that are more powerful, more open and more secure.

Many ways to modernize

Modernizing legacy applications can involve:

• Migrating applications to more modern computing platforms• Moving from an outdated, character-based “green screen” to a more

graphical user interface• Migrating data to a more modern, relational database system• Combining various application systems into one consolidated system

• Retiring applications that no longer support business needs• Integrating or interacting with third-party software

Legacy modernization is a highly customized process. There is no “one size fits all” modernization solution. The importance of legacy applications requires that a modernization strategy be based on assessment and analysis, and that it provide a step-by-step plan focusing on containing costs and reducing disruption. A successful modernization strategy will incorporate four key steps:

Successful legacy modernization tries to combine the best of both worlds. Businesses should be leveraging the strengths of their legacy applications while benefiting from the features of modern technology. The end result should be flexibility for future growth, quicker response to market changes and an enhanced competitive position.

This article also appeared in

Canadian Technology &

Business magazine, October

Fall/Winter 2006 edition.

For more information about

Speedware’s legacy

modernization solutions, visit

www.speedware.com/

modernization

1. Assessing the applications. The structure and complexity of the current applications must be understood.

2. Understanding the business and technical context. The goal is to better understand the nature of the applications and how they will be used.

3. Defining the target. What you end up with following legacy modernization should align with your business needs.

4. Providing recommendations and a road map. The proposed strategy should be based on information gathered in the previous steps and should include plans and resources required.

Fall 2006

6

Media V5 boasts new look, new functionalityIf it’s been a while since you had a look at Media, you’d better sit down. Speedware’s venerable BI workhorse was recently given a thorough makeover, and the changes are stunning. Here’s a summary:

New graphics — Media’s graphical capability has been significantly upgraded. Media V5 provides greater flexibility with colors, images and fonts. You can now apply gradients, patterns, images and custom colors almost anywhere: chart foreground and background, dashboard background, chart values, legends and buttons. Charts can now be displayed without title bars and borders to achieve a clean and seamless look. 3D rendering has been enhanced and the 3D effect made available for more charts, including lines, donuts and pyramids.

Default chart properties — This powerful feature sets defaults for all new charts and lets you make global changes to all charts in a dashboard, ensuring a consistent look.

Scorecards — As of Media V5.1, you can add scorecards to your dashboards. Scorecards

track a set of measures against target values and provide information about how far each measure is from the target. Highlight colors give a quick visual cue to the status of each measure.

Enhanced chart properties — Media’s Chart Properties dialog gives you more power than ever to customize your dashboard. New filter properties greatly increase your ability to zero in on the results that interest you.

Context buttons — These buttons give you instant access to a given dimension in the Modify Context dialog.

Themes — You can now save the properties of a dashboard as a theme that can be applied to other dashboards.

Numerous usability enhancements — Smart labels, analysis rules that trigger e-mail alerts, tooltips for charts, zoom feature, exporting to PDF and sending charts by e-mail are just some of Media’s great new usability features.

Speedware Media Team

TEC

HN

ICA

Lar

ticle

s

Fall 2006

7

Keeping score with Media V5.1Media V5.1 includes powerful scorecard functionality that analyzes measures and compares them to target values. A typical scorecard looks like this:

It shows the measure name and status, the current value, the target value, the percent of the target achieved, and the current variance from the target in absolute terms and percentage. Creating a scorecard is simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Set targets in the dictionary:

• Open the dictionary in the Dictionary Editor.

• Click the first measure for which you want to set a target.

• In the measure’s Target tab, set the target — either a specific value or another measure. If you choose another measure, the first measure’s target will be pegged to the second measure’s current value.The target is thus dynamic (often used for sales and expense measures).

• Use the sliders to specify the zones (variance from the target) that will result in status colors being applied.

• Specify whether users can modify the zones in the dashboard.

• Repeat for other measures.

2. In the dashboard:

• Refresh the dictionary (File > Dashboard Properties > Dictionary tab)

• Choose Insert > Scorecard. The CAR opens and immediately displays the measures that you can add to the scorecard.

• Choose your measures and then click Query > Add to Dashboard from the CAR main menu.

Highlight colors show the

status of each measure:

Yellow — warning

Green — opportunity

Red — problem.

The colors are applied

according to specifications set

for each measure in the

dictionary.

Define targets and zones for measures in the

Dictionary Editor. The zones determine how the

highlight colors are applied in the dashboard

when the measure value varies from the target.

1

In the CAR, specify the measures you want

in the scorecard and then add the scorecard

to the dashboard.

2

Fall 2006

8

3. In the dashboard, right-click the scorecard and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

• In the Graph tab, give the scorecard a name.

• In the Scorecard Chart tab, specify the type of information you want to see in the scorecard. By default, the current value and the target are displayed. You can also show variance from the target in absolute terms or as a percentage.

• You can also modify row colors and specify how many letters will be used in the measure names. Other tabs also help customize the look of the scorecard.

4. When you defined targets in the dictionary, you may have checked the option called: Allow changes by end user. In the dashboard, these measures will appear in the Targets tab of the Dashboard Properties dialog (File > Dashboard Properties > Targets tab). Users can make changes to each measure’s highlight zones by doing the following:

• Select the measure and click the Redefine zones option.

• Use the sliders to specify new zones for the highlight colors, and then click OK.

Speedware Media Team

Use the Scorecard Chart tab in the Properties

dialog to specify the columns that are displayed in

the scorecard, as well as row colors, etc. Other

tabs in the dialog specify the title and font, sorting

scheme, refresh rate, etc.

3

Use the Targets tab in the Dashboard

Properties dialog to give users the ability

to modify zones for each measure.

4

The scorecard, with a new title,

new colors, fewer columns,

sorted (descending) on Current

values, and with redefined

zones for the Actual Profit $M

measure.

Fall 2006

9

New architecture for Media Web V5.1With Media Web V5.1, it’s simpler than ever to display dashboards through a browser. Most of the technical set up that was required in previous versions is no longer needed. The back-end administrative work that used to be performed in the Media Web Configuration menu is now handled in Decision Server and the Administration System. In most cases, your current repositories, user access definitions and dashboards are all that you need.

Media Web can use different Web servers to offer dashboards over the Internet. However, the current version has been specifically designed for tight integration with Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) V5 or higher. As long as IIS is installed, you simply need to install Media Web and specify a Decision Server port number to make all of the dashboards in the corresponding repository available through a browser. When users log on with Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, they are presented with a list of dashboards, classified by data view.

Media Web’s graphical interface has also been significantly upgraded. Graphics are much sharper and dashboards have the look and feel of real Web applications.

Note that you no longer have to use templates to define the look of dashboards. Media Web faithfully reproduces the look of underlying Media dashboards. Media V5’s default chart properties and themes make it so easy to manage the look of dashboards, it’s simply better to make modifications there, rather than in the Web-based versions of the dashboards.

To see existing dashboards on the Web:

1. Make sure that Microsoft IIS is running on your computer.

2. Install Media Web on the same machine. When prompted, enter the IP address of the Decision Server machine and the Decision Server port number associated with a repository that has dashboards.

3. Use the Administration System to ensure that users have access to the dashboards.

4. Open a browser and log ontohttp://your_machine/MediaWebV5. Click Connect to Server and then enter a valid user name and password for the repository. You’ll see a list of available dashboards.

Speedware Media Web Team

Media Web just needs Microsoft Internet

Information Services to make all of your

dashboards available through a browser.

Fall 2006

10

Media powers Activant Performance Driver SuiteWhen Speedware joined Activant Solutions Inc., it was immediately apparent that Speedware’s OLAP dashboard tool, Media, would complement Activant’s ERP offerings. Even before the two companies merged, Speedware developed a “white label” program that saw Media powering dashboards for a number of companies that had a complete ERP system, but lacked an analytic tool.

The program lets companies decide how much of the dashboard development is carried out in-house, and how much at Speedware. At Activant, developers know their customers well, and have extensive experience with the transactional databases used in their operations. At Speedware, R&D includes not just technology architects, but also experienced application and data warehouse developers. The mix was perfect and, within days, Speedware developers had produced prototype dashboards for Activant Performance Driver Suite (PDS).

PDS is a portal that contains a suite of analytic modules. These modules include dashboards,

scorecards and traditional reporting. The modules have a wide range of features, including e-mail alerts, highlights triggered automatically by pre-defined analytic rules and multiple levels of drill-downs.

PDS is typically developed and customized for a specific vertical. Activant’s customers range from construction materials centers to shipping and warehousing companies, lumber yards, home improvement centers and automotive parts suppliers.

The first collaborative effort between Speedware and Activant was PDS for Lumber & Building Materials, followed closely by PDS for Wholesale & Distribution and PDS for Dispatch & Delivery. These versions of PDS are already in use at dozens of customer sites.

For more information about Media and PDS, or about integrating an analytic dashboard front end into your products, contact your Speedware representative.

Speedware PDS Team

Activant Performance Driver Suite offers

dashboards, scorecards and reporting to

analyze all aspects of business.

Fall 2006

11

Using ACUCOBOL with AMXWACUCOBOL-GT from Acucorp, Inc. is a comprehensive development system including a compiler, a runtime module, a file system, an interactive debugger and much more.

ACUCOBOL integrates very well into both the AMXW development and production environments. This article is an overview of the steps involved in linking the products together and also contains a few troubleshooting tips. For detailed installation steps, please consult the AMXW Installation Guide. The article focuses on the ACUCOBOL runtime component and how it interacts with AMXW. Other components such as the Vision indexed file systems can also be used in AMXW but these are not covered here.

Information in this article is based on an HP-UX installation.

Installation

ACUCOBOL must be installed before AMXW as the AMXW installation needs to refer to variables (such as ACUROOT), files and directories specific to the ACUCOBOL installation. During the AMXW installation process (installAMXW), you need to select the ACUCOBOL compiler and specify the version and its location. The version is needed because there are some differences between ACUCOBOL 6 and 7. All instructions and examples here are based on ACUCOBOL 7 and do not apply to ACUCOBOL 6.

In order to run ACUCOBOL programs in an AMXW environment, the NLRUNCBL variable must be set correctly and point to a valid ACUCOBOL runtime module with a valid license file. As with other AMXW settings, the NLRUNCBL variable is automatically added to the .profile file.

A typical NLRUNCBL for ACUCOBOL 7.0, as created by the AMXW install script, looks like this:

In this example, the runtime module is called runcbl_AMXW805. The license file has the same name as the runtime module suffixed with a .3lc or .alc extension. The license file must reside in the same directory as the runtime module. In the example above, it could be:

$ACUROOT/bin/runcbl_AMXW805.alc

Command-line options specify configuration and error handling settings:

$ACUROOT/bin/runcbl_AMXW805 -c $NLROOTDIR/$ACCT/ACUCOB/config70.ini \ -le acuerror.log -x -b

It’s easy to use ACUCOBOL

in the AMXW environment

on HP-UX.

For more information about

ACUCOBOL, visit the Acucorp

web site at:

www.acucorp.com

The continuation character (\) has been added for readability. This is submitted as a single line.

• The -c option specifies the ACUCOBOL configuration file to use. The configuration file contains recommended settings and is created in the following step.

• The error log is specified with the -le option. In this case, it is called acuerror.log and will be created in the current working directory.

• The -x option requests that the runtime module display native filesystem errors to provide additional information and help troubleshoot file access problems.

• The -b option prevents the runtime module from initializing the terminal as this may interfere with AMXW’s own terminal handling feature. See the following troubleshooting tips.

Fall 2006

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Preparing the Runtime Module

The default runtime module is called runcbl and is located in the $ACUROOT/bin directory. This module does not know anything about AMXW. To create an AMXW-aware runtime module, you need to execute the AMXWAcuSetup script located in $NLROOTDIR/install. This script makes a copy of the runtime module and links it with the AMXW libraries. It also makes a copy of the license file and modifies the ACUCOBOL configuration file accordingly.

Executing a Program

When a RUN command is entered, nlsh does not try to run the program name as is. Instead, nlsh modifies the program name to match the ACUCOBOL convention. To do this, it appends the .acu extension to the program name. If needed, it also takes care of converting the AMXW notation borrowed from MPE (file.group.account) to UNIX notation. The modified name is then passed as an argument to the runtime module. Basically, nlsh appends the program name to the NLRUNCBL value. Given the example above:

Troubleshooting Tips

If there is a problem with the runtime module or the ACUCOBOL object file, nlsh may return similar error messages. For example:

• If the environment is set properly and a non-existent program name is specified on the RUN command, nlsh returns something like:

The ACUCOBOL logfile is not created in this case.

• The same error is displayed if NLRUNCBL points to an invalid or non-existent runtime module even if the program to run exists.

Since the specified runtime module is incorrect, no error logfile is created.

::RUN MYPROG.MYGROUP

... becomes:

$ACUROOT/bin/runcbl_AMXW805 -c $NLROOTDIR/$ACCT/ACUCOB/config70.ini \ -le acuerror.log -x -b $NLROOTDIR/$ACCT/MYGROUP/MYPROG.acu

::RUN NOPROGPid 7831: ERROR execv: (2;No such file or directory) Path is '/home/user1/NEWLAB/PUB/NOPROG' RUN NOPROG ^ Unable to load program to be run. (CIERR 625)

$ NLRUNCBL=NoRuntime $ nlsh ::RUN YESPROG Pid 7848: ERROR execv: (2;No such file or directory)Path is '/home/user1/NEWLAB/PUB/YESPROG' RUN YESPROG

^ Unable to load program to be run. (CIERR 625)

Again, the continuation character (\) has been added for readability. This is submitted as a single line.

Fall 2006

13

• If the runtime license file does not exist, is invalid or if the license has expired, nlsh displays the following messages:

In this case, the error logfile is created and contains something like:

• Nlsh displays the same error if calls done in the program cannot be resolved. The error logfile would contain something like:

In this case, KORELOGS is the name of a subroutine. This problem may be solved by adding the CODE_PREFIX parameter to the configuration file (-c argument of NLRUNCBL). This parameter contains a list of directories to search.

If nlsh does not display meaningful errors and if you cannot find additional information in the ACUCOBOL error log, you should temporarily remove the -b argument from NLRUNCBL and try again. The runtime module may display other error messages.

François DesrochersQA Analyst

::RUN YESPROG^Unable to load program to be run. (CIERR 625)

Invalid license or license not found for this connection type

Try loading 'KORELOGS.acu'...KORELOGS.acu: No such file or directoryTry loading 'KORELOGS'...KORELOGS: No such file or directoryKORELOGS: Program missing or inaccessibleCOBOL error at 000017 in /home/user1/NEWLAB/PUB/YESPROG("../SRC/YESPROG.cbl", line 55)

Fall 2006

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Debugging in AMXW — in nlsh, Micro Focus, ACUCOBOL and edWinHaving migrated your HP e3000 application to a new environment, you may be required to do some debugging. The debug level could range from analyzing trace or log files for nlsh or edWin to debugging with interactive COBOL debuggers. Setting up these facilities varies from one product to another.

Debugging in nlsh

Debugging in AMXW nlsh is done through the internal tracing facility that is enabled when the variable called TRACE is set. There are many trace levels that could be used (see the AMXW Run-Time Guide for a full list). The trace level that is most often used is P — this gives all possible information. To enable tracing, you simply set the TRACE variable like this:

The output of the AMXW trace facility is sent to stderr, so you need to redirect the nlsh stderr to a file or it will be mixed with the output of your current session. For example:

The AMXW trace file has lots of helpful information, some of which will help you directly, and some which may be sent to Speedware Support for analysis.

Debugging in Micro Focus

The Micro Focus debugging tool is an interactive menu-driven tool called Animator. To set up an object for debugging, you need to make sure the following cob options are specified at compile time:

• -g puts debug information in the object

• -a compiles for animation

As well, set the COBSW variable to +A to ensure that the program runs under the control of the animator:

Debugging in ACUCOBOL

The ACUCOBOL debugging utility, another interactive menu-driven tool, is named debugger. You need to specify the following options to setup and enable debugging:

• -Ga puts debug information in the object

• -d starts the interactive debugger.

If you are in the debugger but do not see the code being executed in the top window, chances are you have not compiled the code with the -Ga option. For example:

The -e followed by a filename gives you an ACUCOBOL log file.

Debugging in edWin

edWin allows you to debug by directing information to the file name specified in the EDWIN_VERBOSE_FILE variable. The edWin variables required for logging are:

• EDWIN_VERBOSE=999 Full debug level.

• EDWIN_VERBOSE_FILE=edwin.log Location and name of log file.

When using edWin and trying to debug COBOL code using the Micro Focus Animator or the ACUCOBOL debugger, you may need to

$ export TRACE=P

or, in nlsh:

::SETVAR TRACE "P"

$ nlsh 2>myfile.log

Different debugging utilities

give you the flexibility to test

and improve all aspects of

your migrated applications.

$ export COBSW=+A

Compile

$ ccbl32.exe -Ga MYPROG.cbl

Runtime

$ C:\Acucorp\Acucbl61\AcuGT\bin\crun32.exe -c C:\Speedware\AMXW\ V80504\NEWLAB\ACUCOBOL\config.ini -e acuerr.log -x -l -b -d MYPROG

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redirect the edWin output to another terminal so the debugger will be displayed.

Follow these steps to set this up:

1. Open a Reflection session and type tty. It will give you something like:

/dev/pts/tx

2. To allow access by other users or your other session, you need to change the access mode:

chmod 777 /dev/pts/tx

3. Open a second Reflection session, the one where you will run your program to be debugged.

4. Type:

export TERMINAL=/dev/pts/tx

TERMINAL is a variable used by edWin. In this case, by setting it to the tty of another session, the edWin screen will be sent to that session instead of the current program session.

Tony AversaSupport Consultant