MainTrend's PowerBuilder Utilities Tool with WCF

Learn about our PowerBuilder migration services to Java (EE) or .NET platforms

The purpose of this tool is to increase the development productivity and to diminish maintenance costs.

MainTrend's PBUtil tool can:

• export all the PowerBuilder objects from your PowerBuilder libraries (pbl's) to one directory
• determine (based on the export logs) whether you have duplicated PowerBuilder objects in your application
• calculate source lines for all your exported files (either in ASCII or UTF-16 encoding)
• build a cross-reference report, and, based on this report:
  • give you a list of "unreferenced" objects - these objects are candidates for the application clean-up
  • produce a subset of referenced objects, based on an initial list.
• measure statistical metrics for your application
• reverse engineer your DataWindows to xml representation
• capture your PowerBuilder business logic to a Windows Communication Foundations solution

1. Source Export

To export files from your PowerBuilder application you should prepare a list of all the application's libraries (.pbl files) - fully qualified paths, each path on a separate line.

For example:
c:/Program Files/Sybase/PowerBuilder 10.0/pfc/demoapp/peat.pbl
c:/Program Files/Sybase/PowerBuilder 10.0/pfc/pfewnsrv.pbl

The order of libraries in the list should be reversed order of the library list of your application.

Then this list should be copied to the library list text area of the tool; and the path where your export files should be placed should be copied to the tool's "Export Dir" field.

All your PowerBuilder objects from the application's PowerBuilder libraries will be exported to the export directory, and "ExportLogs" subdirectory will be created under the export directory and filled with export logs.

2. Learning Logs

After exporting files you can learn the export logs. Just leave the library list in the tool's library list text area and the export directory path in the tool's "Export Dir" field.
If there are duplicated PowerBuilder objects in different libraries, you will receive the list of all the duplicates.

3. Source Lines

You can calculate the number of lines in all the text files in the directory from the "Export Dir" field. The text files are presumed to be in ASCII encoding.

4. Source Lines - UTF-16

You can calculate the number of lines in all the text files in the directory from the "Export Dir" field. The text files are presumed to be in UTF-16 encoding.

5. Cross Reference

Having all your PowerBuilder objects exported to the directory named in the "Export Dir" field, you can get the cross-reference report of your PowerBuilder application. In addition to the cross-reference report you receive a list of objects, that are not referenced by any other object. These objects are candidates for the clean-up process. But take into account, that only static references, which are stated in class names or string literals can be processed. References, that are computed dynamically (for example a window name is retrieved from your database), can not be processed.

6. Subset

Based on the cross-reference report of your PowerBuilder application, you can produce a subset of linked objects.

"Export Dir" field should contain the directory with your exported PowerBuilder objects. The "list" text area should contain a list of "starting" objects - each object name in lower case on a separate line.

For example, a name of your application object:
peat

With the references from the starting objects, the required subset will be built.

7. Statistics

Having all your PowerBuilder objects exported to the directory named in the "Export Dir" field, you can get the statistical metrics of your PowerBuilder application: how many objects of different PowerBuilder types are there in the application.

These metrics are very useful for estimation of the complexity of your application.

8. Capturing PowerBuilder business logic to a Windows Communication Foundation Solution

Having all your PowerBuilder objects exported to the directory named in the tool's "Export Dir" field, you can convert some of your PowerBuilder business logic methods to a .Net Windows Communication Foundation solution (formerly - web services).
In order to export your PowerBuilder bussiness logic to WCF C# code you need to identify the methods that will become the WCF sevice methods. The mapping is very simple: just give each service a name then choose the methods from the original application. You can use new names, you do not have to keep the original ones.
It is posible to create as many services as you need.

To purchase the tool for only $23990.00 just fill in the form below and click "Submit" button: