Re: Deep Code Coverage

A LITTLE OFF-TOPIC . . . Looking for a Green-screen Trace Tool

At the same time that Armando is looking at RDp v9, I have been looking elsewhere for Trace tools.
The one I found still has the problem of any new Batch job being placed under Debug, but it is for me, an interesting search for other tools that Trace code.

Besides the new RDi function, I recently found an interesting open-source Green-Screen Trace product. Since we are only running RDi 8 (not RDi 9) and we just do so much in Green Screen and batch, I wanted to see what this other, older offering had. As one of the iPro article indicates, you can almost "wear out the F10 Step Key" using the Green-Screen debugger STRDBG, and putting machine-time to work instead of human-time would be useful. So I wanted to see what this Trace (which is just another tool in our toolbag) had to offer.

By googling, I found a nice tool at the www.vlegaci.com<http://www.vlegaci.com> website, but they do not have any open source option posted anymore (404 page not found for their TSX RPG tool).
There is a write-up about their tool in June 2009 http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/productnews/Codelyzer that shows their Gui charts of their product, and also Databorough's X-Analysis tool is mentioned in many articles.

But I came back to the article http://iprodeveloper.com/rpg-programming/handling-giant-programs-use-trace-tools-demystify-program-behavior which shows what a simple text-based trace tool can offer up
(A Trace tool can even help me document for SOX compliance the changed code and code coverage of my tests.)

Finally, I did find a different article of a free Trace Utility with source.
This function is like the old S/38 ADDTRC command which was so helpful in some instances - - and this one has the necessary match of source lines to source statements that modern tools should have.
http://search400.techtarget.com/tip/Utility-helps-you-trace-RPGLE-programs
( As with anything you find on the internet, utilities should be reviewed for malware and bad stuff, and examination of the source and it's API calls passed muster in our shop.)

And as code gets refactored, the free-form Indenter command I use which can run in batch or RDi is a timesaver, too,
http://jplamontre.free.fr/AS400/INDENT.htm


P.S. http://iprodeveloper.com/rpg-programming/handling-giant-programs-refactoring-rpg-spaghetti-code mentions Martin Fowler.
I would also say read Michael Feathers book, too, to truly understand refactoring strategies.

- John Voris

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date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:58:06 -0600
from: Armando Soto
subject: [WDSCI-L] Deep Code Coverage

Hi, I've been testing the new code coverage feature and I like it but there is something that I can't do yet.

I want to run a code coverage in a program that makes a call or a sbmjob to another program, and I want to see the report to the program that has been called too and not only the main program. I've tried to add the others programs in the What to Analyse tab but that doesn't work.

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if what I'm trying to do is not supported yet.

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