Problem

You are studiously working away on a sparkling new application, when all of a sudden you receive, via e-mail, the horrific news from the endearing team leader that one of the features of the application requires rework. Looking at the number of forms in the system, you’re heart skips a beat or two before you dissolve into a dead faint. How are going to find out which forms are affected? Plough tediously through millions of lines of .PRO listings?

Solution

No! Fortunately, there is a way round this. Hidden in the murky depths of the Assembly Workbench is a component Find function. For the purposes of this discussion we’ll use the DBS CV application to demonstrate the Find function, and how to save you many hours of aching legwork.

The Find Component tool bares a striking resemblance to Screenshot 1. It is accessed by clicking on the cute magnifying glass icon, which you can spot as the fifth icon along under the Assemble Components window. For each Search mechanism, you need to Find What you are after, and select the Subsystem, where (All) is as flexible as it comes. Life is never simple, so let’s investigate this phenomenon in more detail.

Screenshot 1

The Keywords option is a rather useful mechanism for searching Component Signatures for one or more keywords, since each signature can be associated with one or more keywords (in the Define Signature screen). For the purposes of this demonstration, we will first of all find the names of all the data lookup forms. The form signatures have been previously labelled with the keyword "LOOKUP".

1. Enter the keyword, LOOKUP, in Find What, or select it from the Browse Keyword popup list of available keywords.
2. Check the Keywords option in Search.
3. Select (All) as the Subsystem. This is the default.
4. Click on Find.

Screenshot 2 shows what happens. In the Access Points window, the results of the find are shown, under the tree structure Hits found for "Lookup". Each node represents a component whose signature contains the matching keyword. A further function, List Find Results under the Component menu, gives further information about the location of the matching keyword within the highlighted node. An example of this window is shown in Screenshot 3. In this first example, the component DBS_LU01 has been highlighted. Listing the results for this component produces little further information, other than ‘Found LOOKUP for keywords of DBS_LU01’. DBS_LU01 was spotted because the two keywords LOOKUP and CV have been defined in the Keywords property of its signature definition.

Screenshot 2

That’s the simple stuff explained, so let’s get a bit more clever. The second option in the Find Component window (see Screenshot 1) is Proc in Triggers, with an associated choice to Include Model and Template Triggers. As its name suggests, this option searches through all component triggers to match the specified text you have typed in the Find What box. Note that keywords do not apply for this option, that the search is not case-sensitive, and also that the search will match the text whether or not it comprises a whole word; for example, a find on the text "level_code" will match both the line "level_code = $1" and "call aio_level_code".

For the next example, we’ll do a Proc In Triggers search for the text "level_code", but leaving out the Include Model and Template Triggers option. After entering the text in the Find What box and clicking on Find, the results are presented as shown in Screenshot 3. The View Find Hits window, mentioned in the first example, describes in detail where each occurrence of the level_code value text has been found. In this example, the form component DBS_LU03 is guilty of containing several references to level_code. Using the Edit Component or Edit Trigger options (the two buttons next to the magnifying glass in the Assemble Components window), you can then directly enter and maintain the code in the highlighted component. Leaving the component returns you to this screen, thus providing a neat way of making boring and monotonous changes that little bit more fun.

Screenshot 3

In Screenshot 4, the Execute trigger of DBS_LU03 is displayed, showing the two instances of level_code that the find function reported for this trigger in Screenshot 3. In addition, the Tags window (beneath the Structure window) displays a Workbench Find Tags tree of all the triggers containing the matching instances of the find request in this component, in this example DBS_LU03. This tree structure can be used to directly access these triggers, in the same way the Triggers window is used to edit triggers.

Screenshot 4

The number of finds increases if you select the Include Models and Templates option, since this extends the search to look at the proc code in triggers at model and template level. The results are displayed in the same View Find Hits window together with those matches at component trigger level. There is no marked differentiation between matches found at component trigger level and those found at model or template level.

The third find option, Descriptive and Comment Fields, does a search on the ‘Description’’ and ‘Comments’ fields in each Component Signature. Any matches found are displayed as for previous searches. For example, a search for the initials "CHL" lists several hits, including DBS_LU03. The message ‘Found "CHL" in description of DBS_LU03’ is displayed in the View Find Hits window.

This find option can also be extended to search the ‘Description’ and ‘Comment’ fields of the Component, by selecting both the Proc In Triggers and Descriptive and Comment Fields options. The search looks in the Component Signature ‘Description’ and ‘Comment’ fields, the Component ‘Description’ and ‘Comment’ fields, and the Component triggers.

For example, the text "CHL" exists in the Component Signature ‘Comments’ field and in the Component’s ‘Comment’ field for DBS_LU03. Running a search for "CHL" with only the Descriptive and Comment Fields option selected will only search the Component Signature. However, extending the search to include the Proc In Triggers option will also find the text in the Component Comments field. Note that the View Find Hits window displays the text line ‘Found "CHL" in description of DBS_LU03’ twice, since it does not make any differentiation between the Component Signature and the Component itself.

A further feature of the Find Component facility is the Keep Existing Find Tags option. As its name suggests, selecting this option prevents the Access Points current ‘Hits’ from being cleared down before the new search is done. This allows you to perform more than one search and still retain the lists from previous searches. As each search is done, the View Find Hits window expands to include the current component’s find hits from previous searches.

For example, performing a search for "CHL" finds the text in the description of DBS_LU03. Performing a new search for "level_code", whilst retaining the Keep Existing Tags option, creates a new hitlist, this time for level_code. DBS_LU03 is included is this hitlist, as shown in Screenshot 5, and looking at the View Find Hits window for DBS_LU03 in this list shows both the find results from the first search (for "CHL") and this search.

Screenshot 5

A final tip. It is possible to perform a search for multiple values, by using the <GOLD><semi-colon> key combination in the Find What box to separate each of the required values. Note that the search is done on a ‘list the component if it contains any of these values’ basis, rather than ‘contains all of these values’. Values can comprise any combination of text and keywords. The matching hitlist is displayed as normal in the Access Points window with, for example, the title ‘Hits found for "CHL" and "level_code" and "LOOKUP"’.

And finally... It is also worth pointing out that UNIFACE gets very confused if you insert more than one <GOLD><semi-colon> after a specified value, since UNIFACE fails to understand the following value, and therefore will not search for it. This is most likely to happen if you use the Browse Keyword popup to include keywords at the end of your Find What list. For example, "CHL" and "level_code" are specified in the Find What box, separated by a <GOLD><semi-colon>. If you then use the Browse Keyword popup to add the "LOOKUP" keyword to the find criteria, UNIFACE always inserts a <GOLD><semi-colon> before the keyword text. Even if you have already placed a <GOLD><semi-colon> after "level_code" in anticipation of knowing you’ll be adding this further value, UNIFACE will still insert another before the keyword.

That’s it. You’ve sought, and now you’ve found.

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