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Database Solutions - Hints & Tips

Tip 07:

Message Frame

The message frame is where UNIFACE puts information about your program as it is run and compiled. However, it does have some limitations

1. Accelerator Keys do not work

In the ini file used by your environment, if you have a section such as:

[accelerators]
; Accelerator to key mapping
fileopen=Ctrl+O
close=Ctrl+A
quit=Ctrl+F4
delete=Alt+D
editcut=Ctrl+X
editcopy=Ctrl+C
editpaste=Ctrl+V
editfind=F11
editfindnext=F12

Then you would expect to be able to use the standard keys such as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to perform cut and paste, however in the message frame this does not work Instead you get the message:

I am yet to discover if there is a reason for this.

2. Cut and Paste

The standard Windows 3.1 keys do work however, so you can use:

Cut - Shift Delete
Copy - Ctrl Ins
Paste - Shift Ins

To cut and paste text to a text file on to the operating system where your development runs, e.g. your PC, then you can use the keystroke combination (on Windows, the Gold key is the + on the numeric keypad):

Gold Space R X,

to remove the highlighted area to a text file.

To insert text from a file, you can use the combination:

Gold Space I X

3. Search

To search for text in the message frame you would usually use F11 to define your profile and F12 to repeat the last search. These suffer from the same problem as the 'cut and paste' keys.

You can use the Gold key sequences:

Gold Gold , - define profile
Gold , - search for text

4. Putmess_logfile

You can only view the message frame if you can press the Gold M to invoke the screen, but what if the application crashes, before you get a chance?

By adding an entry to your assignment file, such as:

$putmess_logfile c:\temp\logfile.log

UNIFACE will automatically copy every thing sent to the message frame to the specified logfile. You can open the logfile (once UNIFACE has finished using it) in any text editor such as Wordpad or Notepad

5. Putmess off and xtrace on

That's fine, but what if your application goes into an infinite loop or runs very slowly? It will never finish, so you won't be able to access the logfile. If in debug you specify

Putmess off

Everything written to the message frame will be written to the screen (in character mode) or written to the transcript window.

So what good is that?

Well if you combine that with xtrace, so in debug, you specify the command

Xtrace

Ever line of executed code will get copied to the message frame, but if you have set putmess off, the code being executed will be displayed in the transcript window.

So you can literally watch which code is being executed, as it is run. This can be useful if you have an application which is performing slowly, and you want to know where the application is becoming slow.

Try it and see.

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