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The Road to Damascas –A Conversion Experience:

LS and @Formula to SSJS2014/03/17 – Matthew Fyleman

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� Matthew Fyleman

� 21 Years as a Notes/Domino

Developer

� Mostly Working on:

� Xpages conversions

� Product development

Who Am I?

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� Based on My Experiences

� Converting LotusScript and

@Formula to SSJS

� Tools that can help – particularly

regular expressions

What is this Talk About?

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� When should you convert existing code?

� Conversion Options

� NotesAgent.run() with parameter doc

� Search and Replace

� Dedicated Tools

� Search and Replace

� Preparation

� Introduction to Regular Expressions

� Examples and Demonstration

� Tips and Traps

� Dedicated Tools

� Questions

What am I talking about?

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Never!

When should you convert existing code?

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What is the problem?

� It is always going to be slow

� GIGO

� You will introduce new bugs

� Re-developing will be quicker,

cheaper and you will end up with a

better result

� But if you really must ...

When should you convert existing code?

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What are your options?

� NotesAgent.run()

� Quick and Dirty

� Agent must run independently

� Only use when agents are available and time is

critical

� Search and Replace

� LotusScript -> JavaScript (and Java)

� Less useful for @Formula

� Dedicated Tools

� @Formula

Conversion Options

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� Search and Replace is most useful for LS conversion

� Syntactically similar

� Easiest if you do a little refactoring first

� Option Declare

� doc.field(0) -> doc.getItemValue(“Field“)(0)

� Camel Case Notes Objects

� Make Sure Method calls are consistently named

� Best to Avoid All-In-One-Go

� Function or Sub at a Time

� Variable with one purpose in one location may have a different use

elsewhere

Converting LotusScript to SSJS - Preparation

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� Regular Expressions are your new BFF

� Sophisticated Pattern Matching

� Elements from search can be carried

through to replace

� The Search and Replace built in to DDE

can use Regular Expressions

� Useful outside LS conversion (e.g.

Validation)

� See Planet Lotus - http://planetlotus.org/profiles/ross-

swick_97733

Regular Expressions

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� Tidy up first – Option Declare, remove clustering e.g.:

Dim x as Integer,y as Integer,z as Integer

� We want to match any variable name in the pattern:

Dim <var name> As <Any valid type>

� Fairly simple:

Dim[ ]+[A-Za-z0-9_]+[ ]+As[ ]+(Integer|String|Boolean|Double|Variant)

� But how do we replace?

� Modify the search:

Dim[ ]+([\w]*)[ ]+As[ ]+String

� Use this for replace

var \1 = “”;

Starting Simple – Dim Statements

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� For Notes Objects, Things are simpler

Dim <var name> As Notes<rest of object name>

- Ignore ... As New NotesSession for now

� Also, initialising in SSJS, = null is ok:

var <var name>:Notes<rest of object name> = null;

� So our terms are:

� Search:

Dim[ ]+([\w]*)[ ]+As[ ]+(Notes[\w]*)

� Replace:

var \1\:\2 = null;

Starting Simple – Dim Statements (2)

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� For the most part, simple S & R (but order is important):

End If to }

[ ]*Then to \) {

Else[ ]+If[ ]* to } else if \(

If[ ]* to if \(

� But what about:

If (x = 10) Then

� Use Search: If[ ]+([\w\(\)\[\]\.<>" ]*)=([\w\(\)\[\]\.<> "]*)[ ]+Then

� Use Replace: if \(\1==\2\) \{

� NB: Works but not optimal!

� Other comparison operators not a problem

A bit more complex – If Statements

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� The problem:

� Session object is global in ssjs: ‘session’

� In LS it is created:

Dim sess As New NotesSession

� Need to find all LS session objects, and replace with

session

� How do you get a list of session object names?

! – session objects

You need a coffee!

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� Java String Object has regex search and replace

String source = “Dim x As String”;

String result = source.replaceAll(“Dim[ ]+([\w]*)[ ]+As[ ]+String”, “var $1 = \“\”;”);

� Pattern and Matcher objects make this even more powerful

Pattern p = Pattern.compile(pattern);

Matcher m = p.matcher(this.source);int startPos = 0;while (m.find(startPos)) {

if (!itemList.contains(m.group(1))) {

itemList.add(m.group(1));

}

startPos = m.end() + 1;}

Adding Java

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� Similar Issue to Session

� Need to find all document object names, and replace field

handling methods

� Will probably need to handle dot notation

� Arrgghh!

� How do you search for dot notation?

<doc name>\.([^GetItemValue])\([0-9]+\)

� Still hard work!

Field Handling

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� There are other types than string!

� Always review and test converted code thoroughly

� Date handling is a pain

� Script libraries can help here – Java?

� Watch out for User interaction and particularly dialogues

Work out your strategies in advance!

Search and Replace – Tips and Traps

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� In some respects @Formula -> SSJS is easier than LS ->

SSJS

� @Formula JavaScript Wrappers help a lot

� Mostly just ‘;’ to ‘,’, and converting lists to arrays

� Some constructions are obvious:

@SetField(“Field”, Value);

� Goes to:

doc.replaceItemValue(“Field”, Value);

� Or

S: @SetField\([ ]*([\w”]*)[ ]*\,[ ]*([\w”]*)[ ]*\);

R: doc\.replaceItemValue\(\1, \2\);

� But there are some issues ...

Converting Formula

@

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� No direct equivalent in SSJS for *+, *= *>=

etc. when applied to Lists

� Need to plan for this

� Java Class/Library to provide direct substitute

� Unfortunately, Java does not permit operator

overloading, so has to be a set of methods

Converting Formula – List Processing

@!

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@If(@Contains(_WFData_neu;_Key);"";

@Do(

@Set("_Sachgebiet_Zuordnung";@DbLookup("NOTES":"NOCACHE";"":_ADM$StructureDB;"Workflows";"WFArbeitsanweisung";

"Sachgebietzuordnung"));

@If(_Sachgebiet_Zuordnung = "" | !@Contains(_Sachgebiet_Zuordnung;_Key2);@Do(

@Prompt([Ok];"Hinweis";"In der System Struktur VBM wurde für das aktuelle Sachgebiet kein Workflow definiert. Das Dokument

wird zum ehemaligen Kompetenzträger zurückgegeben, damit dieser ein neues Sachgebiet auswählen kann.");

@Set("_Kompetenzträger";Bearbeiter1);

@Set("_tmpintern";5)

);

@Do(

@Prompt([Ok];"Hinweis";"In der System Struktur VBM wurde für das aktuelle Sachgebiet ein neues Sachgebiet konfiguriert. Das

Dokument wird zum Kompetenzträger zurückgegeben, damit dieser das neue Sachgebiet auswählen kann.");

@Set("_neues_Sachgebiet";@Left(@Right(_Sachgebiet_Zuordnung;_key2);"||"));

@Set("_Elements";@Elements(@Explode(@Left(@Left(@Right(_WFData_neu;"||Sachgebiet#");"||"); _neues_Sachgebiet) +

_neues_Sachgebiet; "$" )));

@Set("_KompetenzträgerData";@Explode(@Left(@Right(_WFData_neu;"||Kompetenzträger#");"||"); "$"));

@Set("_Kompetenzträger";@Subset(@Subset(_KompetenzträgerData;_Elements);-1));

@Set("_tmpintern";6)

)

)

)

);

Converting Formula - @If, @Do and @While

@!!!

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� Search and Replace can be used for

@Formula -> SSJS ...

� ... but it can only take you so far

� A dedicated parser can go further

� Only real alternative to manual translation for

complex statements

� Time consuming to create

� Still not a silver bullet

Parsers

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� Espresso - http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm

� Good for learning regex, and serious regex dev

� Free!

� PowerGREP

� Sophisticated regex file search

� Where regex started (UNIX grep)!

� Expensive

Dedicated Tools

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�We4IT – www.we4it.com

�OpenNTF – www.openntf.org

�Regex Quick Reference

http://www.night-ray.com/regex.pdf

�Loads of websites for all aspects of regex

development

�Mastering Regular Expressions – Jeffrey E.F.

Friedl – O’Reilly Publishing

Resources and Information

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Questions?

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matthew.fyleman@we4it.com