Created by James Hurrell, last modified on Dec 18, 2023
This documentation is not maintained. Please refer to doc.castsoftware.com/technologies to find the latest updates.

Summary: This section provides more detail about the support for PowerBuilder and the way in which it is supported.

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

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