Generating a Program, Screen, or Server

You can generate the COBOL code of a Program, Screen, or Server. In this context, a Server can also be a Communication Monitor or a Folder. If you are connected to the Rational Team Concert™ server, you can also generate an OCX proxy from a Business Component-type Server. You use this proxy to process, in an OCX environment, the services of a Logical View and its associated Business Component. From a Folder, you can also generate a Java™ proxy. This proxy contains a set of classes that are used to manage the Folder in a graphic application.

Before you begin

You can decide where the files are to be generated. Refer to the link about the target of the generated files for more explanations.
Note: For the instances that are imported from Pacbase, the skeleton language of the local generation is identical to the Pacbase skeleton language. This piece of information is retrieved from the extraction of the Pacbase models and from the import. It is stored in the Library.

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 structure errors are detected.

Procedure

You can generate the COBOL code in different ways:
  • Right-click a Program, Screen, or Server instance in the Design Explorer view, the Keywords view, or the result view of a design or reference search. Select Generate and the entity type of the selected instance.
  • Right-click anywhere in the COBOL code of a Program, Screen, or Server instance that is opened in the PDP COBOL editor or in the Generated Code Structure view. Select Generate the code.
  • Click Generate the code in the Design view of the instance. To be able to do so, you must have previously generated the instance a first time and opened its code in the PDP COBOL editor.
  • Enter an rpp –generate command line from a command prompt.

Results

A progress information message box is displayed until the generation is complete.

The local generation of a Program, Screen, or Server produces the following files:
  • A .cbl file that is nested under the Program, Screen, or Server instance in the Design Explorer view. If you right-click it and select References > Subreferences, the instances that are involved in the generation are automatically displayed in the References view. For explanations on the generated constants, variables, and functions, see COBOL description of a generated Program, Screen, or Server.
  • A map description file for a Screen (.map, .bms, or .mfs) that is nested under the Screen instance in the Design Explorer view.
  • A metadata file of the generated design (.cblpdp) and a metadata file of the map for a Screen (.mappdp, .bmspdp, or .mfspdp). These files can be viewed in the Package Explorer view: They must not be edited but must be assigned the same version number as the other generated files.

To edit the generated .cbl file , right-click it and select Open with > PDP COBOL editor. You access the COBOL editor and views from which you can work on the code.

For an OCX proxy generation, the generation produces a .txt file under the Business Component in the Design Explorer view.

Note: To know how to generate the Java proxy of a Folder, see Generating the proxy of a Folder or Folder View.

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