Result view of a server reference search

This view displays the results of the reference search that was requested for the selected instance or file. This search was started from the References > Server subreferences or References > Server super references choice of the instance or file contextual menu. It was performed directly on the Rational Team Concert™ server.

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.

The composition links include the free references. Free references are links that are set when the name of a target instance is entered in some text fields of a source instance. The target instance is not necessarily defined. In this case, it is preceded by the icon of the entity that is entered in the input field but this icon is grayed.

For explanations, see The free references.

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 reference tree, you can perform the following actions:
  • Open the instance in its design editor in a read-only mode. The editor displays the same information as it would if the instance was present in the local workspace. You can navigate through the instances. For example, you can open the editor of a Data Element from the CE Lines tab of a Segment.
  • Open the instance in its COBOL editor, in a read-only mode, if the entity contains a COBOL description.
  • Open the design editor of a calling instance and highlight the reference links to a called instance (Pacbase facet). To open the editor, select the choices Previous match or Next match. If the calling instance and the called instance are linked by only one reference link, the two choices are equivalent. However, if the instances are linked by several reference links, you use these choices to browse forward or backward among the links of this couple of instances and open the corresponding links in that order.
    If the design editor of the calling instance is already opened when the reference search is started, the choices Previous match and Next match first open the editor on the link that was detected in the active tab. Links are displayed according to their order in the editor. Only the links that are present in the instance design are explored. Moreover, only the following reference links are displayed:
    • Segment: CELine,
    • Data Structure: LSLine,
    • Communication Monitor Dialog: CPLine, and CPLineParameter,
    • Dialog: CPLine, CPLineParameter, and CSLine,
    • Server Dialog: CPLine, CPLineParameter, and CSLine,
    • Program: CPLine, CPLineParameter, and CDLine,
    • Report: CELine,
    • Screen: CPLine, CPLineParameter, CELine et CSLine,
    • Server: CPLine, CPLineParameter, and CSLine.

  • Show the history of the instance. This choice opens the History view where the change history of the instance is displayed.
  • Load the artifacts. Only the instances from which you have selected this choice are loaded into the local workspace.
  • Load the required artifacts. You can select this choice from one of the following line types:
    • One or more design files. If the design file is a Program, Screen, or Server instance, a dialog box asks you whether you want to load the associated generated source file. This file is not required but its loading makes the product easier to use.

      A specific loading wizard opens. It displays the selected files and their required artifacts that were detected by following the subreference links. All these files are loaded into the local workspace, where they constitute a consistent set of data.

    • One or more source files or maps (for Screens). The links are automatically explored to find all the required artifacts. All these artifacts are loaded into the local workspace.

    For explanations, see Loading the local workspace.

  • Load the required projects for this instance. You can then limit the number of the components to be loaded into your local workspace in order to be able to work on the instance.
  • Search for its own super references or subreferences that are then in turn displayed in the Server References view.
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.
Note: If you start the search from the results of a server design search, all the cbl files of the stream are proposed by default. However, if you start the search from the results of a server subreferences search, the cbl file from which the reference search was run is proposed by default.
When you click OK in the dialog box, you switch to the Server Usage Search view where the results of each usage are displayed.

Toolbar

This view contains a toolbar that can be used to perform the following actions:
  • Open the design editor of a calling instance with Previous match (Previous match) and Next match (Next match).These actions are also available from the contextual menu. Therefore, they are explained with the other choices of the contextual menu.
  • Cancel the current search (Cancel current search icon).
  • View the previous reference searches (Show previous reference searches icon). Click the arrow associated with the icon to display a menu that contains the following elements:
    • 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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