This section covers the following topics:
XRef Evaluation is an optional plug-in unit for Natural Studio. Therefore, before any action can be taken, XRef Evaluation must be activated in your Plug-In Manager and the generation of cross-reference data must be enabled.
The following topics are covered below:
So that you can use the XRef Evaluation plug-in, you must first enable the usage of plug-ins in the
dialog. Once enabled, the Plug-in Manager is automatically active each time you start Natural.To enable the usage of plug-ins
From the
menu, choose .The
dialog box appears.Make sure that the
tab is shown.Note:
If you have previously disabled success and delete messages, the
corresponding check boxes are not selected.
Make sure that the
check box is selected.Choose the
.The
menu command and the corresponding toolbar button are now available. When the usage of plug-ins is not enabled, this menu command and toolbar button are not shown.The XRef Evaluation plug-in is not active by default.
When the Plug-in Manager has been enabled, you can activate the XRef Evaluation plug-in. Two types of activation mode are available:
Automatic
XRef Evaluation is automatically activated each time Natural is
started.
Manual
XRef Evaluation must be activated manually on demand (default).
To activate the XRef Evaluation plug-in
From the
menu, choose .Or:
Click the corresponding toolbar button.
The
window appears.Select the
entry.Click the right mouse button and from the resulting context menu, choose
.This does not automatically activate XRef Evaluation for the current session. To activate it, you can either restart Natural or proceed as described with the next step.
Click the right mouse button while XRef Evaluation is still selected and from the resulting context menu, choose . When activated, the XRef Evaluation toolbar is automatically provided.
For details, see the section Invoking XRef Evaluation Commands.
Note:
If you want to deactivate the XRef Evaluation toolbar, choose
from the
menu.
For detailed information, see the section Plug-In Manager in the Natural documentation.
Whether the generation of cross-reference data is activated by default depends on the settings of the Natural parameter module and the environment you are currently connected to.
To activate the generation of cross-reference data
From the
menu, choose .The
dialog box appears.Make sure that the
option is selected.Choose the
button.A message appears indicating that XRef mode is now set to "On".
Choose the
button.Cross-reference data will from now on be generated when you catalog an object.
Once XRef Evaluation has been activated, your Natural Studio interface will be changed in the following way:
the
menu will display the relevant XRef Evaluation commands,a toolbar will be available for the commands most frequently used in cross-reference analysis,
context menu commands for cross-reference analysis will be available,
the
tab will be available in the dialog ( ).The command availability depends on your working context.
This section covers the following topics:
Choose the menu command
to display the dialog. In the dialog window which will be displayed, choose the tab and choose the settings you prefer. The following options can be specified:You can specify which language setting will be used for your cross-reference analysis:
Runtime language setting for your remote environment, or
Natural Studio language setting
Note:
You can change the Natural Studio language setting using the
profile parameter ULANG
.
In order to always use filters during your cross-reference analysis, this option must be set to On. You can also switch the option on and off using the Using Filters.
button in the toolbar. For details about filtering, see the sectionYou can specify how recursive nodes in your XRef Evaluation output will be treated.
If you choose Expandable, all levels of recursion can be displayed when manually expanding a node.
If you choose Not expandable, only the first level below a recursive node can be displayed. Selecting and choosing the node will not expand it.
Note:
The automatic Expand All function is
deliberately not available for recursive nodes.
If
is enabled, your XRef Evaluation output will be refreshed if changes were made to objects in the same environment. Enabling may result in a reduction of performance.If
is disabled, your XRef Evaluation output will remain static, not reflecting changes that may have been made in the meantime.This option enables or disables the display of XRef Evaluation warnings in message boxes and the result view.
By default the checkbox is empty, since typically users should be informed about all potentially harmful situations. However, if for some data a large amount of uniform warnings is issued, users may desire to suppress their display by checking the box
.All other XRef Evaluation messages except warnings are still displayed if this option is activated.
This option enables or disables the display of Predict documentation names.
If this option is enabled and a Predict documentation name has been assigned to a referenced or referencing object, then the Predict documentation name will be visible in the tree or list view when the object is displayed.
If you execute an XRef Evaluation command, the results will be displayed in a cross-reference view. A cross-reference view is an output window, either in the form of a tree or a list.
A "tree view" displays cross-reference information in hierarchical form. You can easily navigate between the objects and references of interest by collapsing or expanding the relevant nodes. At the top of each tree, a Cross-reference Analysis Configuration node is displayed, listing important parameters relevant for this analysis.
A "list view" displays additional information in non-hierarchical form. In list views, you can select more than one object for further processing.
For information on how to print the information displayed in a tree view or list view, refer to the section Printing Views in the Natural for Windows documentation.
The evaluation result displayed in a cross-reference view depends on the parameters you specified, for example the logon library, steplib settings and language code that are active when the analysis is started. For that reason, the results of the same XRef data retrieval can vary due to different environmental or user-specific settings.
For example, if you switch to a different logon library while XRef Evaluation processes an analysis, the presented result will always refer to the library that was active when you started your evaluation. This may lead to different results if you start the same analysis on the same object, but with a different logon library.
Using filters, you can influence the scope of your cross-reference analysis. It may be useful to specify filter options, if you want to focus the result output on a particular range of interest.
If filtering is switched on and the filter functionality is available, whenever you perform the XRef Evaluation command Active Cross-references or Passive Cross-references, a dialog will be displayed before the command is executed. In this dialog, you can specify a variety of filtering conditions for the cross-reference analysis you want to perform.
If you select a particular object or set of objects as source object(s) for your cross-reference evaluation, the
dialog will offer only the choices for the target object.If you select a library as source object for your cross-reference evaluation, the dialog will offer choices for both the source and the target object. The source object side of a
dialog might look as follows:To specify filtering attributes
Place the cursor in the desired attribute line to select the attribute.
The
selection box above the table will be highlighted.In the
selection box, enter or select the value you want to use for filtering.Your entry will be displayed in the Value field in the attribute line.
Repeat this for as many attributes you want to specify, for both source object and target object.
On the target side select the
check box, if you want to apply the filter criteria for more than one level in your analysis output.Choose
.If an attribute was chosen which does not belong to the selected object type, the selection has no effect.
To invoke XRef Evaluation commands from the main menu
Select an application, a library or an object within a library.
From the main menu, choose
.The available commands are described in detail in the section XRef Evaluation Functions.
To invoke XRef Evaluation commands using toolbar buttons
You can also use one of the following buttons:
to display active cross-references for selected objects. | |
to display passive cross-references for selected objects. | |
to enable or disable filtering. | |
to specify a library structure. |
To invoke XRef Evaluation commands using context menus
Select an application, a library or one or more objects within a library.
Right click on your selection to display the context menu.
Select the command you want to execute.
The context menus vary depending on the object of interest.
The following XRef Evaluation commands are available:
If you select active cross-references of an object, XRef Evaluation generates a tree view with the referencing ("using") object (for example a program) below the configuration node in the tree view. Below this object, all objects which are referenced ("used") by the top level object are shown (for example other programs, subprograms or subroutines).
This command is available for selected objects in the
menu, in a context menu and using the relevant toolbar button.If you select passive cross-references of an object, XRef Evaluation generates a tree view with the referenced ("used") object below the configuration node in the tree view. Below this object, all objects which reference ("use") the top level object are shown.
This command is available for selected objects in the
menu, in a context menu and using the relevant toolbar button.Note:
XRef Evaluation for DDMs in Windows or UNIX environments is only
available, if the Natural parameter FDDM
is specified.
This command is available for the selected library in the
menu and in a context menu.When you execute Unresolved Cross-References, a passive cross-reference tree view displays the node Unresolved references. Expanding this node and all levels further down, you can display all objects in the current logon library which have unresolved references including their passive cross-references.
This command is available for the selected object(s) in the
menu and in a context menu.The menu item
offers the following cascading menu options:When you execute Objects not referenced, a list view will display all objects in the current logon library which are not referenced by any other object in this library.
When you execute Variables not referenced, a list view will display all variables specified in Data Areas in the current logon library which are not referenced by any object in this library.
When you execute Error numbers not referenced, a list view will display all error messages in the current logon library which are not referenced by any object in this library.
This command is available for your selected object of type Application in the menu and in a context menu.
When you execute Referenced, but not linked, a list view will display all objects which are referenced by the application for which you started the analysis, but not linked to the application. If you selected more than one application for the analysis, a separate list view is opened for each selected application.
This command is available for your selected Application in the menu and in a context menu.
When you execute Linked, but not referenced, a list view will display all objects which are linked to the current application, but are not referenced by any objects linked to this application.
This command is available in the
menu or in a context menu for objects selected in a cross-reference view. It is available only for objects in an application context, which are referenced by the object(s) for which you started the analysis, but not linked to the currently active applicationWhen you execute Link to Application, all objects which are referenced by the object(s) for which you started the analysis, but not linked to the currently active application will automatically be linked to the application.
For example, if you execute the command Referenced, but not linked, the result will be displayed in a cross-reference view. Using the command Link Application for one or more objects listed in this view, you can easily link all objects to the application that are required for cataloging or runtime processing.
This command is available in a context menu for nodes selected in a cross-reference view.
The result of the List Children command is a list view of the children of the selected node.
In contrast to the tree view, you can select more than just one object within the list view and perform an action such as Catalog or Stow. This is very helpful when performing mass updates is necessary.
This command is available in the
menu and as a toolbar button.The function Select Library Structure allows you to specify a library structure for your cross-reference analysis. In the Select Library Structure dialog you can select the name of the structure, then all libraries defined in the steplib structure will be displayed with their name, database ID and file number.