Chapter 25: Revolve and Mainframe Express Integration

This chapter explains how you can use Mainframe Express in conjunction with Micro Focus Revolve.

25.1 Overview

Revolve is a tool for analyzing applications. Among other things, you can use it to investigate and make an inventory of all the source files for an application and to trace the lines of code that would be affected by changing particular data items. When you find potential problem areas in your application, you can use Mainframe Express to edit and debug them.

Revolve/2000 is part of Revolve/2000 + SmartFind-Fix/2000 which is designed for analyzing applications and investigating the year 2000 problem. For a more comprehensive solution to finding, fixing and testing year 2000 bugs, we recommend the TouchPoint add-on to Mainframe Express, which integrates with SmartFind-Fix/2000.

Revolve/2000 is discussed in more depth in the Revolve/2000 + SmartFind-Fix/2000 User Guide supplied with Revolve/2000 + SmartFind-Fix/2000. This chapter does not document Revolve/2000 itself, just the parts of it needed to work with Mainframe Express.

25.2 Integration

This section explains how you transfer information about your application from Revolve to Mainframe Express. You use Revolve as an analysis tool and Mainframe Express for debugging and modifying the application.

There are two types of information you can export from Revolve to Mainframe Express:

Project information
You can export a list of all the source files in a Revolve project to Mainframe Express. You export the information by generating a .pop file. Mainframe Express can import the .pop file to populate its own project file with the same source files as the Revolve project.
Points of interest
You can export a list of all the points of interest you have found using Revolve/2000 by generating a Points of Interest report. This exports all the points of interest in .poi files, one for each source file. When you edit a source file with Mainframe Express, if there is a matching .poi file in the same folder, the editor highlights all the lines marked as points of interest with a icon.

25.3 Procedure

This procedure illustrates using Mainframe Express with Revolve and Revolve/2000.

To use Mainframe Express and Revolve together:

Create an empty Mainframe Express project.
Start Revolve from Mainframe Express by clicking Revolve on the Tools menu.
If you have Revolve/2000 + SmartFind-Fix/2000 installed, this is started instead of Revolve.
Create a new Revolve project or load an existing one.
If you are creating a new Revolve project, add files to the project and create the Revolve database.
When Revolve parses the source files, it might flag files as missing for either of the following reasons:
- You have not downloaded all of the source files needed for the application.
- Some of the source files are generated when the application is built - for example COBOL copybooks generated from BMS screensets.
Export the project.
Click Export Project on the Project menu to generate a .pop file. This lists all the files in the project.
In Mainframe Express, import the .pop file into your project.
Click Import File List on the Project menu and select the .pop file. This adds all the files you added to the Revolve project to your Mainframe Express project.
Complete setting up the project in Mainframe Express.
This includes setting any build settings you need to build the project properly.
Build the project in Mainframe Express.
If building the project generates any new copybooks required by the application (see step 3), add the new copybooks into your Revolve project.

At this point you have two projects representing the application: one in Revolve and one in Mainframe Express. You can now move onto the next stage of using Revolve to flag possible problem areas in your code.

From Revolve/2000 + SmartFind-Fix/2000, start Revolve/2000 and identify the points of interest you want to look at in Mainframe Express.
Export the points of interest from Revolve.
You do this using Reports. To export points of interest, select the Export Points of Interest for Programs (Workbench/2000 tag files) report. The report is created as a set of .poi files, one for each source file containing points of interest.
Use the points of interest displayed inside Mainframe Express to locate problem areas.
As long as the .poi files are in the same folder as the source files, Mainframe Express picks them up automatically. It displays the locations of points of interest using a icon in the left-hand margin of the editor.
If you reanalyze the application, generating new points of interest, you need to export the .poi files again, in order to display the new information in Mainframe Express.