RE: Reusable module repository -- RPG400-L

tags: IMO it is necessary to have configurable tags. someone would like to

use \author in germany someone would like to use \Autor or @autor. it is
definitly a necessity.

Agreed.  For this to be used it MUST be very configurable because companies
aren't going to be able to change their shop standards because of some open
source project.

xml for storing the data is not that bad. but i think in the docu

generation process it can lead to some complications.
 
I think XML makes sense as an intermediary data holder, and the more I think
of it, the data will ultimately need to reside in a relational db so it can
easily be searched.  In previous search intense applications I have created
separate Physical Files to do this that only contain a name value pair
approach. Consider the following PF definition (basically taking the data
vertical instead of horizontal):

LIBRARY    SRCPF       SRCMBR      ATTR        VALUE
AARONLIB   QSOURCE     BFXML       AUTHOR      Aaron Bartell
AARONLIB   QSOURCE     BFXML       CREATED     2006-07-01
AARONLIB   QSOURCE     BFXML       DESCR       This is a special program
that eats .NET programs
AARONLIB   QSOURCE     BFXML       DFTACTGRP   *YES
AARONLIB   QSOURCE     BFXML       VARDECL     CUST#

You get the idea...

and last but not least ... in what language should the iledocs progamm be

written ? rpg, java, rpg and java, c?

I know this is the RPG forum, but I think the chances of ILEDocs survival
will fair better if it is written in Java mostly because we are going to
find a lot more supportive programming assistance out there with Java.

I have started a feature list on the sourceforge site and will begin using
the forum there after this post.

Hopefully this takes off better than the last open source project we tried
from this list:-)
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Knezevic.Mihael
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 1:55 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: AW: Reusable module repository

doxygen: afaik there are two ways to "enable" rpg for doxygen. make a
pre-run program which creates c-like syntax or write a pre-run program which
creates a document which can be parsed by the doxygen backend (but feel free
to read the doxygen faqs =). but in c there are no file decleration, etc...
so the rpg specific things can not go into the docoumentation. that wouldn't
be that good. (f. e. i would like to have all used files in the docu).

tags: IMO it is necessary to have configurable tags. someone would like to
use \author in germany someone would like to use \Autor or @autor. it is
definitly a necessity.

xml for storing the data is not that bad. but i think in the docu generation
process it can lead to some complications.

perhaps we should talk about what to parse:
in my place there are over a thousand source members in one source file. it
would take a lot of time to parse all the source members. so there should be
a possibility to only parse one member so one could execute it as a post
command for compilation (or the whole source file for updating the
documentation in the night with a scheduled job). so we would have hundreds
of xml files. its not easy to generate a docu with main pages and overview
pages from several xml files (not impossible but more complex). if we have
it all in one xml file than it will be hard to implement a parsing of a
single source member (and at the info to the one xml file).

it would be nice to seperate the documentation by libraries in which the
source files are. for example one tab in the html files for each library.

and last but not least ... in what language should the iledocs progamm be
written ? rpg, java, rpg and java, c?
as long as it is rpg or java i think i can contribute something to the
cause.

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Im
Auftrag von AGlauser@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Gesendet: Freitag, 7. Juli 2006 18:32
An: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Betreff: RE: Reusable module repository

Some very good thoughts Aaron.

Aaron Bartell wrote on 07/07/2006 09:23:49 AM:

Here's how I would do RPGDocs if I started today. 
 (... an extensive plan - see below)


Sounds pretty reasonable.  I think maybe configurable tags could get kind of
hairy ... unless the configuration is of the 'map your tags to our
pre-defined tags' variety.  Other tools of this type seem to force
pre-defined tags - but this would be a nice feature if it can be designed in
at the beginning.

The best part about this is that a source crawl tool has most likely

already

been written to do something like this, we would just have to mod it 
to

go

over RPG.


Mihael mentioned Doxygen, which seems pretty nice.  It even seems to have a
way to add in other languages without to much trouble - of course I say that
with just a quick peek at the website.  I have no experience with porting
C++, but I would be interested in learning.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter.  My forecast for free 
time

to

do something like this in the near future is rainy at best.


Me too, which is why I hope there will be enough interest to make starting
an open-source project worthwhile.  If there are enough contributors I hope
there will be enough momentum to keep things moving.


Adam



--- Extensive plan starts here! ----

1. Determine what meta-data I was going to collect and how I was going

to

get it.
   1a. Files used
   1b. H spec options use
   1c. Variable name declarations (good for search if you want to find 
all programs where INV# is used)
      1d. Procedure names
      1e. Sub routine names
   1f. Etc...
2. Determine what data you want to collect that is more on the 
comments side.  For instance many programmers put comment blocks above 
each sub

proc

and sub routine and also at the top of each program (see below).  Each

shop

has different naming conventions for denoting or describing the info 
in

the

comment block (e.g. @Program, Program Name:, Program Name...:, etc) so

these

values would have to be configurable, again, I would use XML to

configure

it.  The hard part with this is knowing when the data stops (i.e. what 
happens when "@Description -" spans multiple lines?)

//**************************************************************************

*****************
      // @Program - BFXML (Build From XML)
      // @Author - Aaron Bartell
      // @Creation Date - 2006-07-07
      // @Description - Dynamically build an RPG program that will 
parse

the

specified xml file.
      // @Notes - ALB 2006-07-07 This should go out in the next 
release (v1.2).

//**************************************************************************

*****************

3. Determine how to catalog the information after it has been "search"

or

"crawled".  For this I would use an xml file like the following.  The

beauty

of putting all this information in an xml document is that xml is 
easily extended and can be consumed by MANY other tools out there 
(thinking of Lucene http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/).

<library name="PROD1">
  <program name="BFXML" memberName="BFXML">
  <copybooks>
    <copybook name="ErrorCp" qualifiedName="QSOURCE,ErrorCP" />
    <copybook name="UtilCp" qualifiedName="QSOURCE,UtilCP" />
  </copybooks>
  <HspecOptions>
    <Hspec keyword="dftactgrp" value="*no"/>
  </HspecOptions>
  <tables>
    <table name="CONFIGPF" [put attributes for all F spec column data]

/>

  </tables>
  <variables>
    <variable name="gError" type="datastructure" based="RXS_Error"/>
    ...
  </variables>
  <subprocedures>
    <subprocedure name="parseXML" exported="false">
      <parm name="pXmlFile" type="varying" length="256"/>
    </subprocedure>
  </subprocedures>
[there would be much more information, but you get the idea. Basically

log

anything and everything about the program]
  </program>
</library>

4. Build an XSLT (XML Stylesheet Language Translation) from the

generated

xml to a grouping of HTML files that could easily be published to a

static

site similar to JavaDocs.  Of course we would want to make it not so

static

because JavaDocs suck for searching (check out this next generation

JavaDoc

called JavaRef: http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/?p=22). No reason we

couldn't

create an application just like it for RPGDocs.

The above is just talking about searching the source and hasn't even

gotten

into processing the API's that will give you interrelations like what

other

modules are making use of module xyz.


############################################################################
#########
Attention:
The above message and/or attachment(s) is private and confidential and is
intended only for the people for which it is addressed. If you are not named
in the address fields, ignore the contents and delete all the material.
Thank you. Have a nice day.

For more information on email virus scanning, security and content
management, please contact administrator@xxxxxxxxxxxx
############################################################################
#########
--
This is the RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries (RPG400-L) mailing list
To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or
change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at
http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.