This section describes the changes, enhancements and new features that have been introduced with Natural Version 4.2.6.
Note:
The utility SYSEXV gives you access to
examples of the new features included in the current Natural versions.
The following topics are covered:
The following changes and enhancements have been introduced:
Processing rules (inline rules and Predict free rules) are now supported in Natural adapters in the same way as in Natural maps.
A field in a PROCESS
PAGE statement can now be associated with a control variable.
When the value returned for that field is not equal to the value sent, the
field is regarded as modified and the control variable is set to
"modified".
The Natural system variable
*CURS-FIELD
can now be used in Natural for Ajax applications to identify the operand that
represents the value of the control that has the input focus.
The following changes and enhancements have been introduced:
In the editor profile, you can now set an option to remove empty
lines from the sources of text objects. See the editor profile option
Empty
Line Suppression for Text. The user exit
USR0070N has been enhanced accordingly.
The List Objects screen enables you to obtain statistical data on the directories of Natural objects currently loaded in the buffer pool or the buffer pool cache (if used). In addition, information on the Natural version under which an object was cataloged is now displayed.
Sample programs using the new Adabas data types have been added.
These sample programs are based on the new DDM EMPLOYEES-V2009 and
require that Adabas Version 8.1.4 is installed.
The SYSMAIN user exit MAINEX11 (source is
delivered as SM-UX-11) has got a new parameter named
USE-LAYOUT-DEFINITION. When
USE-LAYOUT-DEFINITION is set to Y, all
functions for error messages (except the LIST and
FIND functions) check the contents of the SYSERR
LAYOUT for the source and/or target libraries. Error messages that do
not fit into the ranges are not processed.
The List
Profiles function of the SYSPARM utility now provides
the option to select multiple profiles for processing. For further information,
see the relevant section in the SYSPARM Utility
documentation.
SYSPARM in batch now supports updating of parameters
by using a list of values. For further information, see the relevant section in
the SYSPARM Utility documentation for UPDATE
ADD and UPDATE
SUBTRACT.
The SYSPARM utility has been updated to support the
new or enhanced profile parameters for Natural Version 4.2.6; see
Profile and Session Parameters in the section
Miscellaneous Changes and Enhancements.
The SYSTP utility function
Buffer Usage
Statistics (BUS) has been enhanced to reflect the individual
compression optimization settings and the internal thread buffer
statistics.
Under the TP monitors Com-plete, CICS and UTM, the settings of some
Natural parameters gave rise to errors, for example NAT9943 Logic
error in Natural program for an asynchronous session. The problem
was caused by profile parameter CM=ON (command mode) when the
session changed into NEXT mode. To avoid this problem, the profile
parameters CM,
MENU and
PC are now
forced to adequate values, that is, they are set to OFF when
asynchronous mode is selected, either during session initialization or in the
course of the session when using the terminal command
%T=.
The following profile parameters are new:
| Parameter | Explanation |
|---|---|
CMPR |
General Default Compression Optimization
Algorithm
Enables the Natural administrator to define three different types of default storage compression variants, or to disable the optimization. See also the new parameter |
WEBIO |
Web I/O Interface Screen Rendering
Allows you to individually enable or disable the rendering of
certain features of the Natural Web I/O Interface display on the basis of a
style sheet. It corresponds to the
|
The following profile/session parameters have been enhanced:
| Parameter | Explanation | |
|---|---|---|
BPI |
Buffer Pool Initialization
The following new value has been added to the keyword
subparameter |
|
ICU |
This value is enables the ICU buffer pool; see ICU Buffer Pool in the Unicode and Code Page Support documentation. | |
CFICU |
Unicode and Code Page Support
The following new keyword subparameter has been added to the
profile parameter |
|
BPONLY |
Use of ICU Buffer Pool
This keyword subparameter can be used in thread environments, for example, under CICS, to specify whether the ICU must use the ICU buffer pool or if it can use thread storage if the ICU buffer pool is not available. |
|
PROFILE |
Activate Dynamic Parameter Profile
The same behavior as with |
|
TMODEL |
IBM 3270 Terminal Model
A special setting for use in conjunction with Natural Web I/O Interface (NWO) server terminals has been provided, which allows you to set the number of lines and the number of columns individually. |
|
The new parameter CMPR in the
NTBUFID macro of the
NATCONFG
module enables the Natural administrator to specify the type of storage
compression optimization for individual buffer types. The setting of this macro
parameter overrides the general default setting of the new profile parameter
CMPR
described above.
For further information, see Customization of Buffer Characteristics in the Operations documentation.
The following application programming interfaces (API) in the library
SYSEXT have
been enhanced:
| API | Enhancement |
|---|---|
USR0070P |
Default Editor Profile SYSTEM
This user exit routine now supports the new editor profile option Empty Line Suppression for Text. |
USR0360N |
Modify User Short Error Message
A new optional parameter named
|
USR0421N |
Update User Long Error Message on FUSER
A new optional parameter named
|
USR1020N |
Add User Short Error Message on FUSER
A new optional parameter named
|
The following new application programming interfaces (API) have been
added to the library SYSEXT:
| API | Purpose |
|---|---|
USR4214N |
Enhanced Program Level Information
This API provides enhanced information about active Natural objects, such as level of active object, object name and type, long name of object, line number of object call, library where the object was found, database ID, file number, buffer pool, and host name. Note: |
USR4215N |
Return a List of Resources of a Natural
Library
This API provides a list of resources (short object and long resource name) of a Natural library according to the forwarded range parameters. |
USR4216N |
Return a List of Natural Objects of a Natural
Library
Returns a list of Natural objects. The resulting list of objects can be controlled by specifying range parameters and can be sorted by different directory fields. |
USR4371N |
Set User ID and ETID for RPC
Used on the RPC client side, this API sets the user ID and ETID
for Natural RPC servers which were configured with |
As the NaturalX DCOM functionality ceased to apply as of Natural
Version 4.1.2, the application programming interface (API)
USR2022N has become obsolete. When this API is called, the message
USR2022N is obsolete due to discontinued NaturalX DCOM
support will appear.
USR2022N will be removed completely with the next version
of Natural for Mainframes.
The following Natural error messages have been added:
| Error Number | Enhancement |
|---|---|
| NAT1392 | When more than one parameter inconsistency is
detected while the compiler option
PCHECK is set
to ON, this message is displayed to indicate that several parts of
the Natural object need to be inspected.
|
| NAT1393 | When Natural is not able to
execute a programming object, it is now indicated exactly which object is
affected (object name, library, database ID, number of the file from where it
was loaded). This applies to objects disabled by a blacklist (NAT4199) or
cataloged with a not supported version of Natural (NAT1393).
These messages supersede the message NAT0393, which however is retained for compatibility reasons. |
| NAT4199 |
The following Natural error messages have been changed or enhanced:
| Error Number | Enhancement |
|---|---|
| NAT0283 | This error message now indicates the name of the variable that has been defined more than once. |
| NAT0393 | This message is extensively superseded by the new messages NAT1393 and NAT4199 described above. |
| NAT1155 | This error number is now restricted to those
cases where switching between structured mode and reporting mode was effected
by a GLOBALS system command.
|
| NAT1395 | This error message is now issued when mode switching was caused by reading a source object in the source area. It contains the name and the location (library, database ID, file number) of the relevant source object. |
| NAT3000 - NAT3255 | The error messages NAT3000 to NAT3255, which correspond to the Adabas response codes 0 to 255, have been updated to display a nucleus response subcode if Adabas on mainframes and/or Windows, UNIX, OpenVMS provides a subcode for a specific response code. This may cause the display of subcode 0 in some cases. |
| NAT9974 | This termination message has been enhanced to facilitate debugging. |
Natural Version 4.2.6 supports teams developing Natural applications in a remote mainframe environment under Natural for Eclipse.
With Natural Version 4.2.6, the new DDM EMPLOYEES-V2009 is
delivered, since with Adabas Version 8, some new features (for example, the
Unicode data type) have been introduced which are used in the new
EMPLOYEES data delivered with Adabas Version 8.1.4 (see sample
files ADAvrs.PERS and
ADAvrs.PERL).
To make use of the new DDM EMPLOYEES-V2009, these new data
and the corresponding file definition table (FDT) must be loaded into the
Adabas database.
See also the new sample programs supplied with the
SYSEXV
utility.
Natural Version 4.2.6 provides ICU Version 4.0.1 together with Unicode specification 5.1 and Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) Version 1.6.
For information on major changes in ICU 4.0, see International Components for Unicode, Download ICU 4.0 release at http://www.icu-project.org/download/4.0.html.
The performance of the Natural ICU modules NATICU,
NATICUCV and NATICUXL has been improved
considerably.
A local ICU buffer pool has been introduced to improve
NATICU performance if Unicode or code page support is used.
Instead of allocating buffers to store ICU related data separately for each
Natural session, data is stored in the ICU buffer pool. This will avoid
processing of the ICU related data located in the session-specific buffers
before and after a terminal I/O. For further information, see
ICU Buffer
Pool in the Unicode and Code Page
Support documentation.
Note:
It is not possible to use the ICU Buffer Pool with different
NATICU versions. If two different NATICU versions are
used in the same environment, the ICU buffer pool is initialized by the first
Natural session with the NATICU version of that session. If
another Natural session with a different NATICU version is started
afterwards, NATICU detects that the ICU buffer pool is already
used by another NATICU version, and stores all ICU related data in
session-specific buffers as with previous Natural versions.
For z/VSE, the ICU modules NATICU and
NATICUCV are delivered also as a phase to make use of the RCA
technique more convenient. See also
ICU
Library in the Unicode and Code Page
Support documentation.
With Natural Version 4.2.6, the compiler option
PCHECK has
been enhanced for use in conjunction with the following Natural object
types:
Adapters (invoked by a the
PROCESS PAGE
USING statement)
Subroutines (invoked by a PERFORM statement)
Maps (invoked by an INPUT
USING MAP statement)
If more than one parameter inconsistency is detected within the same Natural object, the new error message NAT1392 is issued. See New Error Messages for more information.
