On this page:
Target audience:
CAST Administrators
Detailed technology support
| Language Version | Supported | Comments |
|---|---|---|
PB 8 |  |
|
PB 9 | |
|
PB 10.0 | |
|
PB 10.5 | |
|
PB 11 | | No support of the new features introduced by these versions. However applications built with one of these versions and which are compliant with earlier releases of PB, can be analyzed. |
PB 11.5 | | |
PB 12 | | |
PB 12.5 | | |
| PB 12.6 | |
Required third-party software
To successfully deliver and analyze PowerBuilder technologies, the following third-party software is required:
Install on workstation running the DMT (for extraction) | Install on workstation running CMS (for analysis) |
|---|---|
Nothing required Note that the CAST Delivery Manager Tool simply requires the location of the PBT files for extraction and packaging. | Software required To access the PBL's content during an analysis, CAST uses the PowerBuilder API. As such, the same version of the PowerBuilder IDE used to compile the target application source code must be installed on the machine on which the CAST Management Studio is installed. |
PowerBuilder objects and links
The following section lists the objects and links between objects that the PowerBuilder analyzer is capable of detecting and storing in the CAST Analysis Service:
Objects
| PB Program/Analysis |
| PB Library |
| PB Window |
| PB User Object |
| PB DataStore |
| PB DataWindow |
| PB Structure (Global) |
| PB Menu |
| PB Application |
| PB Function Global |
| PB Control |
| PB Function |
| PB Event |
| PB RPC Function |
| PB Declare Procedure |
| PB Declare Cursor |
| PB External Function |
| Variable (Member, Instance, Shared, Global, Variable) |
| PB8 Workspace |
| PB Proxy Object |
| PB Target |
| PB Subset |
Links
Client/Client
| Link Type | When is this type of link created? | |
| Access | - Read | Caller: Code object - fct, Event... Callee: Variable (instance, shared or global) Eg.: if a = 2 then ... endif |
| - Write | Caller: Code object - fct, Event... Callee: Variable (instance, shared or global) Eg.: a = 2 | |
| - Exec | Caller: Code objetc - fct, Event... Callee: Fct, Evt, Global Fct Eg.: a.f() Please note that when a window is opened (open(w1) for example), there will be an Access Read on w1 | |
| - Member | Caller: Code object - fct, Event... Callee: Variable (instance, shared or global) Eg.: a.b = 2 (member on a and write on b) | |
| - Array | Caller: Code object - fct, Event... Callee: Variable (instance, shared or global) Eg.: A[5].b = 2 (array on a and write on b) | |
| Prototype | When declaring an external function in an object and the function in a DLL that implements it. | |
| Use - Select - Insert - Delete - Update | When the property of an object references a datawindow. | |
| Inherit | When there is inheritance between controls, user objects, menus, and windows. In the following example, the window “w_gui_authors2” inherits from “w_gui_authors”:
| |
| Mention | During the creation of a class. The callee is always a class: (W,App,UO,M,Struct). E.g.: a = Create UO | |
| Rely On | This link is displayed when there is a link between a variable and a type. When the link is on a local type variable, the link will then be escalated internally. E.g.: w1 var | |
Client/Server
| Type of Link | Where is this type of link created? | When is this type of link created? |
| Use(): - Select - Insert - Delete - Update | Embedded SQL | - |
| Datawindow | - Link between Datawindow and table (or view) with PB SELECT | |
| - Link between Datawindow and table (or view) with SQL Select | ||
| Dynamic SQL | - Link found by the inference engine | |
| Prototype | RPC Declare Procedure Declare Cursor | - Link between the logical object corresponding to the logical name in PB and the server object. |
| Call | Datawindow | - Link between Datawindow and Procedure (or sub object in Oracle) |
| Dynamic SQL | - Link found by the inference engine for server functions or procedures | |
| Use | Dynamic SQL | - in dynamic SQL character strings. |
Notes
The following section lists technical and functional aspects with regard to analysis of PowerBuilder source code:
Inference Engine
Note about Dynamic SQL links found by the inference engine
- When the inference engine perceives that a string is an SQL string, then this string will not be passed through the Grep search.
Note about C/S links found by the inference engine
- When the inference engine finds a C/S link, the analyzer will place the link at the level of the object that contains the string and not at the level of the exec. There is various information about these links:
STRING: Concatenated SQL string
CONCATENATION: Compete, partial or not at all. This will enable you to find out whether the inference engine has managed to concatenate the SQL string.
EXECUTED IN: This is the qualified name of the object that contains the SQL exe.
STRING BUILD IN OBJECTS: a list of qualified names of objects that have participated in the construction of the SQL string. The number of objects is limited to 10. For example:
- STRING = DELETE FROM authors WHERE authors.au_lname = (SELECT discounts.stor_id FROM discounts WHERE discounts.stor_id = '2')
- CONCATENATION = COMPLETE
- EXECUTED IN = w1.fct3(Line1,Col51)
- STRING BUILT IN OBJECTS = typelnk.open ; w1.fct1
Note about links found by the inference engine for virtual functions
- For virtual functions, the link is found on the function call. For the link, information will be added about the location of the "create". E.g.:
- STATEMENT "CREATE" IN OBJECT(S) : w_dessin.wof_aire(Line=4,Col=2)
Information about other C/C links found by the inference engine (TiggerEVent, Open etc...)
- There is one link at the string level. The inference engine will gather and store the following information:
- EXECUTED IN OBJECT - the location of the TriggerEVent
E.g.: EXECUTED IN OBJECT : w_macro.of_f
- EXECUTED IN OBJECT - the location of the TriggerEVent
Links in general
- Client/Server links to quoted server objects (e.g.: "Product Sales") are not found during a scan for links in embedded SQL, datawindows, RPC Func, and declare cursors or procedures.
- C/S Use() type links in dynamic declare procedures and dynamic declare cursors are identified by the PB analyzer. However, the PB analyzer will identify the object caller as the object which contains the dynamic string identifying the SQL statement executed by the dynamic procedure or cursor and not the declare procedure or declare cursor (which is the correct object caller).
Other miscellaneous
- When analyzing an entire workspace in one analysis, and if the workspace contains two targets using the same application, the PB analyzer always creates two different application objects in the Analysis Service.
- The PB analyzer cannot handle the pronoun ParentWindow. If it is used in a menu script, no links will be created to windows that use this menu.An extract from the PowerBuilder documentation follows: ParentWindow property: You can use the ParentWindow property of the Menu object like a pronoun in Menu scripts. It identifies the window that the menu is associated with when your program is running.Using ParentWindow: You can use the reserved word ParentWindow to refer to the window that the menu is associated with during execution. For example, the following statement closes the window the menu is associated with:Close(ParentWindow)You can also use ParentWindow to refer to properties of the window a menu is associated with, but not to refer to properties of controls or user objects in the window.For example, the following statement is valid, because it refers to properties of the window itself:ParentWindow.Height = ParentWindow.Height/2
- Virtual functions are handled by the Inference Engine
- There are some limitations regarding the counting and inclusion of comments during a PB analysis:
- Comments between a "select" and a "from" in a cursor declaration are not counted.
- Comments in embedded SQL are not counted.
- Comments that follow a comment in a declaration with nothing behind it (and that has been included in the analysis) are ignored.For example, here is variable declaration in PB (full declaration block):integer gi_comments // comment 1// comment 2/* comment 3*/Comment 1 is associated to the global variableCommens 2 and 3 are ignored and not counted.
- Number of lines of code and comments are counted in x examples when x variables are declared in the same line.
- In some circumstances certain PB menu items may not be imported into the Analysis Service during an analysis. This occurs when the PB menu containing the PB menu items (non-modified) in question is inherited from another PB menu.
- Some PB reserved words might appear in the middle of a qualified identifier, for example, in the following piece of code: OLEObject ol_app, ol_varol_var = ol_app.Variables.Add("app_id") the keyword 'Variables' appears in the middle of a qualified identifier where it is not recognized as a keyword by the PB compiler but the CAST PB Analyzer fails to do so, leading to an incorrect syntax error. The problem particularly occurs when using OLE objects and the keywords that can cause this incorrect syntax error are all the PB reserved words except the following:close, delete, insert, ref, select, system, type, update.
- Metrics are not calculated on PowerBuilder Cursors that belong to Methods. Instead, metrics are calculated on the Method that contains the Cursor