Sample Usage of Change Analyzer

This section describes a sample use of Change Analyzer that should help you get oriented in the tool. Assume that you want to evaluate the impact of changing the YEAR field in your application.

  1. In the Repository Browser, select the project you want to analyze and then click Analyze > Change Analyzer. This opens the Change Analyzer dialog box.
  2. Click Tools > Analysis Options. This opens the Options - Change Analyzer dialog box.
  3. Check Use Cross Program Analysis and then click OK.
  4. Click Step 1: Find Change Candidates (). This opens the Search dialog box.
  5. Click New Criterion () on the tool bar. This opens the Search dialog box.
  6. Type YEAR and then click OK. The new criteria, YEAR is added to the Change Analyzer tab.
  7. Click YEAR and then type *DATE* in the Name Like tab.
  8. Click Find All Constructs. The number of constructs found are displayed in a dialog box.
  9. Click OK. The Change Candidates pane now displays a list matching objects.
  10. Click Setp 2: Find Fields Affected by the Change Candidates () and then Find Affected Fields for All Programs. If a messages pops up informing you that all existing analysis results will be cleared, click OK. The Status dialog box appears and displays progress.
  11. In the Change Candidates pane, a list of change candidates and nested affected fields are displayed. Clicking on an affected field will display more information in the Fields affected by pane. Double-clicking on an affected field in either the Change Candidates or Fields affected by panes will display the relevant code in the Source tab.
  12. In the Fields affected by pane, right-click any of the affected fields, and then click Trace. More information on the affected field is displayed in the Impact Tracing pane as well as displaying the relevant lines of code in the Source pane.
  13. You can use this to examine the declarations for each affected field to determine whether the field will be affected by the proposed change.
  14. Click Tools > Reports. This opens the Report Selection dialog box.
  15. In the Report Type list, select Report On The Whole List and click OK and then click Yes if a message is displayed asking you if you want to continue. Change Analyzer displays a report for the affected fields.
  16. You can now print or save the report.
Parent topic: Identifying Classes of Data Items with Change Analyzer