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Introduction

The Transaction scope offers a view based on the individual Transactions that exist in the current Application:

Click to enlarge

For any Transaction, you cannot hide a grouped node.

Accessing the Transaction scope

To access the Transaction scope, click the Transaction entry in the Investigation panel:

Choose a specific Transaction to display. Transactions are listed in alphabetical order in the Search for Transactions dropdown - by default the first in the list is displayed in the view. The number in square brackets indicates the number of transactions that are available. If there are none, the option will be deactivated.

Filtering the list of available transactions

Sometimes the list of transactions is very large and it can therefore be difficult to locate the item you need. If this is the case, you can use the filter option to reduce the list:



This opens a set of filtering options - you can use any of these options in isolation, a combination, or all of them. Click Reset to clear any changes you have made, or Done to apply the filtering settings.

Click to enlarge

InputFilter the available items based on the item's entry point. Choose an entry point from the list - only items that include the chosen entry point will be made available.
Link types

Filter the available items based on the link type used:

Output

Filter the available items with or without an end point. By default, the filtering is applied to WITH items: this means that only transactions WITH an end-point are displayed by default.

You can alternatively (or in addition) choose an end point from the drop down list - only items that include the chosen end point will be made available.

Tags

Available in ≥ 2.16.

Filter the available Tags associated with the respective Transaction or Data Call Graph (DCG). Only items that include the chosen Tags will be displayed.

Technologies

Available in ≥ 2.17.

Filter the available Technologies associated with the respective Transaction or Data Call Graph (DCG). Only items that include the chosen Technologies will be displayed.

Result list

The result list displays all items that match the filter applied in the left hand panel. If there are still too many items even after applying the filter, you can search the results using the Search bar at the top:

In addition, you can further refine the search options if required, using the icon highlighted below:


Regex pattern

Enabling this option allows you to input the search string using a Regular Expression.

Case sensitivity

Enable/disables case sensitive search (disabled by default). This applies to text strings entered in the search field.

Search bySearch by either Name or FullName.
Search by positionSelect as appropriate to specify where in the string the match should occur. By default this is set to Start.

Note that it is possible to set a custom default setting for these two options via the Advanced Search Configuration options in Configuring display preferences.

You can also sort on Name (by default the items are sorted in alphabetical ascending order) and No. of Objects (number of objects refers to the total number of objects in the Reduced Call Graph (not the Full Call Graph)):

For example, to filter items where the entry point object type is a "Java Class", select the item, click Done and the right hand panel will update with the list of items that match your filter:

Click to enlarge

Finally select the item you wish to investigate and it will be displayed in the view.

Perspective selection

By default, the perspective (how the data is displayed) will be set to CAST Taxonomy (the default layout configured by CAST Imaging and the only layout available) and Level 4 - you can find out more about the Perspective options in User Guide - GUI - Investigate panel.

Navigation flow

Levels

Levels 4, 5 and Objects are available for selection when CAST Taxonomy aggregation is selected in the Investigate panel - these levels provide ever greater details about the items within the selected layer:

Actions

ActionLocationResult/Behavior
Double click on nodeLevel 4In version ≥ 2.12, double clicking a node will transition to level 5. 
Level 5

Drill down to Vignette mode i.e.:  Objects level + drill mode Children + Caller/Callee + Group by communities (depending on the object selected). See also User Guide - GUI - Investigate panel for more information on Drill and Communities modes.

Click to expand

Vignette mode

Expand and investigate the selected object to show its sub-objects. Note that when all sub-objects of the selected object are displayed, a message is shown to explain this:

ObjectsView source code of the object. See User Guide - Viewing source code.
Right click on node

Level 4

  • Properties > Displays information about the node in the right hand slide in panel:

If the object properties cannot be retrieved in a timely manner, a retry button will be displayed:

Level 5

If the object properties cannot be retrieved in a timely manner, a retry button will be displayed:

Vignette mode

  • Expand All > Expand and investigate the selected node (same as double click)
  • Hide node > Use this to hide selected nodes. To unhide, either use the "Undo" option or refresh the page. It is not possible to hide a concept node or a group node, in which case the option will not be available.
  • Properties > Displays information about the node in the right hand slide in panel (see User Guide - Properties panel):

If the object properties cannot be retrieved in a timely manner, a retry button will be displayed:

Objects

If the object properties cannot be retrieved in a timely manner, a retry button will be displayed:

Single click on edgeLevels 4 and 5N/A
Objects and Vignette mode
Displays all the methods that are linked between classes and provides additional actions such as:
  • view source code
  • method information
  • add caller/callees

See User Guide - Using the Method view for more information.

Double click on edgeLevels 4 / 5 / Vignette / Objects

N/A

Transaction start and end points (input/output)

Transaction start (input) and end (output) points are highlighted in the view at Objects level using red circles around the items if they exist:

Legend

Click the Input or Output items in the right hand legend to highlight the items:

Shortest path

A related feature available at Object level is known as the Shortest Path feature and is controlled by the option in the left panel - it is disabled by default:

This option highlights the shortest path between the entry point and end point nodes, where multiple start end end nodes are present in the view:

Shortest Path disabledShortest Path enabled

Note that if no shortest path exists, a message is displayed in the bottom right corner:

Full / reduced call graph

In CAST Imaging ≥ 2.9.1,  by default, the transaction call graph will be displayed in "reduced mode" - in other words this is a simplified transaction call graph: specific nodes and links that are less important will be removed from the view to improve performance. The nodes/links that are displayed are determined automatically during the Application export process.

If you need to view the full call graph, you will need to enable the option in the User Guide - GUI - Investigate panel by clicking the Full Call Graph button - when enabled the button will be highlighted in blue as shown below (a full call graph may take some time to load if the application is very large):

If the full call graph contains more objects/nodes than the number defined in the Notify objects count setting configured in the display preferences panel, then a notification will be displayed to prompt you to choose whether:

ReleasePopupDescription
≥ 2.10.x

  • to cancel the display
  • or to download a .CSV file containing details about the list of objects in the resulting view
≤ 2.9.x

  • to cancel the display
  • or to proceed with the display knowing that the view may take some time to load

Note that in CAST Imaging ≥ 2.7.0 - 2.9.0 the option is called Reduced Call Graph and the behaviour is reversed, in other words, by default a full call graph is always displayed:

Huge Transaction, content is filtered

You may see the following message when looking through the list of available transactions:

This indicates that during the data export/import process, the tool identified that the transaction contained more than 10,000 objects, and therefore stopped the processing action for this specific transaction. In other words, the detail of this transaction has not been exported and is therefore unavailable.

It is possible to modify the threshold (default 10,000 objects) at which the CAST Imaging exporter tool will consider that a transaction is "huge" - see Configuring huge transaction or data call graph threshold.

Drill down behaviour at Objects level

When drilling down into a specific object at Objects level to view the object's sub-objects, and when all sub-objects of the selected object are displayed, a message is shown to explain this:

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