Cross reference utility

cncjay

Well Known Member
Hi all,

How accurate is the cross reference utility's in terms of determining the accuracy of listing associated tables?

If there is an app or batch job for which I want to determine its full table list,will I get a complete listings or are there some cases where I won't get the full list ?

Thank you.
Cncjay
 
You may need to be a little more specific with your question. I will say this in general about the cross reference. Don't take it as the absolute final list of objects that reference any other object. The cross reference will show object that appear in specs/ER code and its a good start. But there may be a LOT of references to objects like tables in C code that will never show up in the cross reference. If you are looking to see every place a table is used you can start with the cross reference but you should also do some sort of text search through all the C code to find other places where the table might be used.
 
I'd say its close to 99% accurate - but it also depends on how recently the cross build was performed. I'm certain that there are some "holes" through C Functions that the Cross Reference might not find, but identifying what objects use what other objects ? Its pretty accurate.
 
I'd say its close to 99% accurate

I'd put it around <60%.

My Xref was just recently rebuilt.
Search of everywhere a Business Function is used for B4200310 returned a list of 84 objects in Xref. Searching C code I found another 84 objects not listed in Xref.

Search of every where a table is used for F4211 returned a list of 728 objects in Xref. Quick search of C code found, at a minimum, another 269 objects not listed in Xref.
 
Here's what I've been doing, instead of the Cross Reference:
- Use the Export Feature of Object Browser (Patwel.Com) to Export All Apps, UBEs, Files, TERs, NERs and C-Functions.... Objects
- It will dump each of them into its own .txt file
- Turn on Indexing, to the folder you just exported everything to

- when it is complete, you can search on any filename, BSFN, whatever - and you will get a list of all the objects that contain that text.

- You can, then, copy that list to a temp file, and use Notepad++ to open all of the files at once - then do a Notepad++ search of the text, and it will give you back a list of all locations where the text exists. You can double-click the results, and your cursor will 'magically' appear in the exported object...

Whitepaper in progress, will probably go to JDETips or JDEResearch... TBD.

(db)
 
Sounds like a pretty good technique.

I don't want to give the impression that I don't like or use the Xref or don't think it's a good tool. I think it is a very useful tool and I use it quite frequently, one just needs to be aware of what it does and does NOT tell you. Once you know what it leaves out you can use other measures to fill in the gaps.
 
Back
Top