Result view of a reference search

This view displays the results of the reference search for the instance that is selected in the Design Explorer view or the result view of a search. This reference search was requested from the References choice of the instance contextual menu.

The tooltip that is associated with the view title describes the search whose result is displayed in the view. You can then easily differentiate the various result views.

The instances that are found by the reference search are preceded by their icons. The associated tooltip displays the entity type.

References of an instance

The search follows the composition links of the instance. There are two reference types:
  • The super references: the instances that reference the current instance,
  • The subreferences: the instances that are referenced by the current instance.
Example: If you search for the subreferences of a Program (Pacbase facet), you see all the instances that this Program calls, down to the finest level, such as the Data Structures, Segments, and Data Elements. Moreover the subreferences always include the Library that contains the generation parameters of the instance.
Example: If you search for the super references of a Data Element (Pacbase facet), you see all the instances that call this Data Element, up to the highest level, such as the Segments, Data Structures, Programs, Screens, and Database Blocks. Moreover, if the Data Element is a parent Data Element, you also see its child Data Elements.

References of a generated file

If you started the subreference search from a generated file (.cbl file of a Program, Screen, or Server in the Pacbase facet), the result view displays the instances that were involved in the file generation.

For the .cbl files, the following information is displayed:
  • The design instance that constituted the entry point to generate the COBOL file.
  • The instances that are called in micropatterns. The Data Elements that are called in micropatterns WF, WE, WI, and WS are then displayed.
  • The Data Elements that are inserted manually in the code of the PROCEDURE DIVISION. The number of usages of each Data Element in the COBOL file is indicated with usage(n), where n is the number of usages of the Data Element.
You can expand the subreferences down to the finest level.

Possible actions on the references

If you right-click an instance in the tree, you can do the following actions:
  • Open the instance in its design editor
  • Open the instance in its COBOL editor if the entity contains a COBOL description. Other editors are also proposed.
  • Generate the instance. If you have updated the design of a Program, Screen, or Server, the newly generated code will integrate the changes in the design, while keeping any specific changes in the code.

    The preference Structure checking before generation management, which is available from Window > Preferences > Pattern Driven Programming > Pacbase Patterns, checks that the nesting of subfunctions in the COBOL code is correct before the generation. By default, it blocks the generation if structuring errors are detected.

  • Search for its own super references or subreferences, which are then in turn displayed in the References view.
  • Publish the instance (Pacbase facet). A multiple selection is possible.
  • Add the instance to the publish session (Add to session choice in the Pacbase facet). A multiple selection is possible.

If you right-click a Data Element, you can select Usage search. This search detects the Data Element usages in the code that is entered manually in the PROCEDURE DIVISION of Programs, Screens, or Servers (files with a cbl extension). Selecting Usage search opens a dialog box where you can filter the cbl files on which the search is to run. When you click OK in the dialog box, you switch to the Usage Search view where the results of each usage are displayed.

Toolbar

This view contains a toolbar from which you can complete the following actions:
  • Cancel the current search (Cancel current search)
  • View the previous reference searches (Show previous reference searches). Click the symbol that is associated with the icon to display a menu that contains the following choices:
    • The previous instances from which you requested a reference search. Select one of these instances to see its references in the view.
    • The History choice. This choice opens a window that shows the previous instances from which you requested a reference search. From this window, you can complete the following actions:
      • Select an instance and display its references (Open or Open in new view) or remove this instance from the history (Remove),
      • Change the number of instances that are displayed in the history (10 is the default) by clicking the Configure link.
    • The Clear History choice, to remove all the previous searches from the history.
  • Export the query result (Export the query result). This command exports the result in a CSV format that can be used in a spreadsheet program.
  • Switch from the super references to the subreferences of the current instance (subreferences),
  • Switch from the subreferences to the super references of the current instance (super references).
  • Modify the way that the instances are shown in this view. Click the triangle (View menu) and select one of the following choices:
    • Sort to specify a new sort criterion. This new criterion is then automatically saved and associated with this view until you change it again.
    • Display to display more information for each instance line in the tree. To remove some additional information from the line, select it again in the menu. This new criterion is then automatically saved and associated with this view until you change it again.
      Note: The relation, which is a type of additional information, is the name of the link between the source instance and the target instance. If the source instance calls the same target instance in different tabs, then a relation is displayed for each tab. For example, if a Screen calls the same Data Element in the -CE Lines and the -CS Lines, two relations are displayed, with the names of the two tabs. However, if the source instance calls the same target instance several times in the same tab, only one relation is displayed. In this case, the occurrence number of the relation is displayed in parentheses, next to the relation name.
    • Filters to filter the results according to the entity type. This choice opens a wizard with all the entity types that you can exclude from the results. If you want to display only some entity types in the results, you must select all the entity types in the wizard with the Select all button, and then clear the types to be kept.
      Example: In the Pacbase facet, you can list the child Data Elements of a parent Data Element. To do so, you must first search for the subreferences of the parent Data Element. Then, you must filter the results by selecting, in the filters wizard, all the entity types except the Data Elements.

You can also filter the results by selecting a project in the Context field and by clicking one of the buttons that represent a hierarchic view of the projects in the design build path. Context only is selected by default. It means that only the instances that are found in the selected project are displayed. However, you can select another hierarchy (upper, lower, or whole) to display the instances that are found in the selected project and in the projects that are hierarchically higher or lower, or in all the projects of the hierarchy.


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