Progress Programming Tips

PPT-26  Compile statement options

Tip:

There are several options on the compile statement that can be used to
the developers advantage.  These options do not affect the compile
itself but rather provide information that can help in analysis and
technical documentation.

LISTING - This option provides a structured, complete with includes
etc, version of the source code.  The structure shows the nesting of
include file references.  The gem of this option is the summary
section at the end of the listing that provides block usage
information.  Most notable are the transaction scope flag and the
buffers and frames references.

XREF - This option contains more information than I can cover in
this limited posting - so check it out!  Several features worth noting
are include and run references, database accesses, shared and global
variables, frames, worktables...

In the past we used xref output to build a database of run and include
file references for technical documentation and call sequence
management.  Not a complete solution as run by value made this less
than automatic, but an excellent start towards documenting an
application.  With all of the new reference types processing this
information into human readable form would be a great utility.

PREPROCESS - This option doesn't provide any special information but
does give you the option to create a finished source file for review.
This file will have all of the includes, preprocessor substitutions
etc., in a clean source presentation.  This can be very handy when a
large number of include files and preprocessors have been used.

Wisdom:

If it looks like a cookie, smells like a cookie, and you have some
milk, what the heck, enjoy!


Rod Gaither                  | rdg@worldinfo.com
World Information Systems    | (910) 333-2580  Voice
Greensboro, NC               | (910) 333-2584  Fax