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CodeGen 5.5.2 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on March 19, 2020 at 12:47 am

Apologies for being only a few days after the last CodeGen release, but we’ve been hard at work and have added some really cool new features, and we wanted to share them with you as soon as possible. We have added support for complex expressions, which allow you to use AND, OR and NOT within expression tokens, and also allows you to use parentheses to explicitly define precedence. Here are some examples:

<IF expression_1 AND expression_2>
[code]
</IF>

<IF expression_1 OR expression_2>
[code]
</IF>

<IF NOT expression_1>
[code]
</IF>

<IF NOT expression_1 AND expression_2>
[code]
</IF>

<IF expression_1 AND(expression_2 OR expression_3)>
[code]
</IF>

<IF expression_1 OR expression_2>
[code]
<ELSE expression_3 AND expression_4>
[code]
<ELSE>
[code]
</IF>

We hope you’re as excited as we are about these significant new capabilities.

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CodeGen 5.5.1 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on March 16, 2020 at 10:04 pm

We are pleased to announce a new CodeGen release that includes a significant new feature named Complex ELSE Clauses. We have some big plans to further enhance IF/ELSE expressions, but for now this initial new feature can be used to simplify complex template file expressions. Here are the full release notes for the new version, which can be downloaded from https://github.com/Synergex/CodeGen/releases.

We added support for Complex ELSE Clauses within expressions, which allow multiple expressions of the same type to be evaluated within a single template file construct. We have future plans to extend the capabilities of expressions even further, but for now this new capability can be used to simplify template file code.
We improved the error checking that occurs when a processing a Harmony Core Customization File.
When using the CodeGen API we have added the ability to specify lists of file overrides at the TaskSet level.
We corrected an error that was causing the <HARMONYCORE_BRIDGE_PARAMETER_TYPE> custom expansion token to return incorrect values for structure parameters.
This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 11.1.1c and requires a minimum of version 10.1.1 to operate.

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SQL Replication – Significant New Features

By Steve Ives, Posted on January 16, 2020 at 8:10 pm

In recent weeks we have been working on making improvements to our SQL Replication environment, which demonstrates how to easily replicate your Synergy data to a SQL Server database. Some of these changes were undertaken in collaboration with a customer that uses the environment extensively, and we thank them for their input and support. Other changes have been on our road-map for some time and we think you’ll be excited about what has been achieved. Here’s a summary of the changes:

Synergy 11 introduced a new SQL Connection API capability which calls the ODBC API function SQLDescribeParam behind the scenes to improve performance and avoid excessive cache memory thrashing for SQL statements that have I/O parameters when accessing SQL Server (VTX12_SQLNATIVE). Synergex recommend setting SSQL_PERFORMANCE_SQL to yes (or setting the SQLPERFORMANCESQL environment variable. We have updated the environment to do this, which should result in improved performance when running in Synergy 11 or higher environments.
We have added the ability to run multiple instances of the replicator process side-by-side, within a single data set, and to divide up the replication of different files between these multiple replicator instances. Each instance is assigned a unique instance name and has its own associated instruction queue file, the name of which includes the instance name, as does the log file produced by each instance. In a multi-instance environment developers can chose on a file-by-file bases which data files are replicated via which queue file, and therefor via which replicator instance. It is important to understand that in this scenario there is no synchronization of the sequence in which changes are applied to the underlying SQL database between the multiple instances of the replicator.
We have added the ability to exclude certain fields in a record from being appearing in and being replicated to the associated SQL Server database table. It is important that fields associated with keys not be excluded, unless those keys are also excluded (see the next item). Generally the fewer fields/columns that are replicated the faster the replication will be.
We have added the ability to exclude certain keys from processing, so that matching database indexes will not be created in the associated database tables. Generally the fewer indexes that exist on a table the faster the replication will be.
We have added the ability for the replicator to detect some kinds of database failure, caused by network errors, or the database being shut down or otherwise unavailable, and allow it to gracefully disconnect, and then attempt to reconnect, with a configurable number of retries and retry interval. This should make the replicator processes more robust.
We have added the ability to change the database datatypes of fields. The main use case envisaged is transforming decimal fields into implied decimal fields (adding decimal places in the database data), but there may be other use cases, such as transforming Y/N fields into Boolean true/false fields, etc.
We have also corrected an issue that could occur if replicator encountered an unexpected error and was configured to use BATCH COMMIT mode. Is some circumstances, if there were uncommitted changes at the time on an error any uncommitted changes could be lost because the change records were deleted from the instruction queue one by one before the batch was committed. Now any instructions related to uncommitted changes remain in the queue file until the batch is committed, and are then all deleted. When the replicator is restarted it will then attempt to reply the changes to the database again. This should help prevent the database getting out of sync if there is a replicator failure.

We’re excited about these new features in our SQL Replication offering and looking forward to hearing your feedback. By the way, many of these new features rely on using the latest and greatest version of CodeGen (5.4.8) which was also released today. If you’re already using an earlier version of the SQL Replication environment, or if you are interested in getting started and would like some assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us through your Synergex Account Representative.

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CodeGen 5.4.3 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on September 22, 2019 at 1:01 pm

I am pleased to announce that another new version of CodeGen has been released, is available for immediate use, and contains several powerful new features:

We added a new structure expression token <IF STRUCTURE_PII_FIELDS> that indicates whether any field in a structure has been tagged as containing PII (Personally Identifiable Information). We also added a new field loop expression token <IF PII_SCRUB> that indicates whether a field has been tagged as containing PII data, and a new field loop expansion token <FIELD_PII_TYPE> which inserts the type of PII data a field contains.
We added a new field loop expression token <IF USED_IN_RELATION> that can be used to determine whether the field currently being processed is involved in any relations to other structures.
We added a new custom field loop expression token <IF HARMONYCORE_CUSTOM_FIELD> and a new custom field loop expansion token <HARMONYCORE_CUSTOM_FIELD_TYPE> to the Harmony Core extensions assembly. In a future release Harmony Core will use these new features to allow developers to easily implement support for custom field types that may be implemented within their applications data set.
We added a new tag loop expansion token <TAGLOOP_FIELD_SNTYPE> and relation key segment loop expansion token <LITERAL_SEGMENT_SNTYPE>.

Additionally, because the Symphony Framework is no longer maintained by Synergex, and is no longer an open source development effort, we have decided to discontinue the distribution of the “Symphony Framework CodeGen Extensions” assembly that was formerly distributed along with CodeGen. We continue to support the addition of custom extensions and the Symphony Framework extensions can be added back at any time by any Synergy developer with the necessary Synergy .NET development tools.

This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 11.1.1 and requires a minimum of version 10.1.1 to operate.

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Enhanced CodeGen CreateFile utility

By Steve Ives, Posted on August 26, 2019 at 9:58 pm

For some time CodeGen has shipped with a utility called CreateFile that (given an appropriately configured repository) could be used to create an ISAM file based on a repository FILE or STRUCTURE definition.

A customer recently asked me to create a mechanism that they could use to create multiple files, load data into those files, and also support creating both RELATIVE and ISAM files. Rather than writing something completely new I decided to extend the CreateFile utility, and that new feature has now been released along with the latest version of CodeGen (5.4.2).

Briefly, there is a new command line option -in that allows you to specify an input file containing the details of one or more files to be created and and populated. The file uses a JSON format. If you’re interested in finding out more you can find additional information in the CodeGen documentation.

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Tags: CodeGen

CodeGen 5.4.0 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on July 3, 2019 at 9:59 am

It’s been a while since a GodeGen release was announced on this BLOG, but rest assured they have been coming thick and fast; in fact there have been 9 interim releases since we last announced here.

So why all the frenetic activity in CodeGen land? Well the primary driving force for so many releases and so many new features is to provide support for the ever evolving Harmony Core RESTful Web Services framework. If you’re not familiar with Harmony Core then you should check it out. More and more Synergy developers are starting to take advantage of it as a way to expose their applications data and business logic in whole new ways and to support a myriad of use cases.

So what’s new in CodeGen 5.4.0? Well the answer to that question is … a LOT! I won’t list all the new features here but if you want to check out the specifics then you can head over to the CodeGen Releases page where you’ll find a detailed change log for this and previous versions. And if you need more information than that then check out the CodeGen Documentation.

We recommend that all developers who are using CodeGen upgrade to this latest version, but particularly if you’re developing with Harmony Core.

Happy 4th Everyone!

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Tags: CodeGen, HarmonyCore

CodeGen 5.3.6 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on September 23, 2018 at 4:43 pm

Just a quick note to announce that CodeGen 5.3.6 has been released and is available for immediate use. This latest version represents the culmination of a series of recent releases which together have added significant new features across the entire product, including the ability to generate code based on metadata found in the xfServerPlus Synergy Method Catalog.

Many of the new features were added specifically to support code generation for the new Harmony Core RESTful web services framework that we are excited to be introducing at the upcoming DevPartner Conference in New Orleans next month.

If you are joining us for the post-conference Harmony Core workshop then you will need to have this new version of CodeGen installed on your development system; you can download it here. And even if you’re not intending to use the new Harmony Core framework, there are many new features that may be useful to all CodeGen users; we recommend this release for general use.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all in New Orleans between October 8th and 12th. If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s not too late! You can still sign up here.

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CodeGen 5.2.3 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on December 1, 2017 at 11:18 pm

We are pleased to announce the release of CodeGen version 5.2.3. The new release includes new features, addresses some issues found with previous releases, and also paves the way for once again being able to use CodeGen on non-Windows platforms through experimental support for the .NET Core environment.

As always, you can download the latest version of CodeGen from here.

CodeGen Version 5.2.3 Release Notes

Added a new experimental utility to the distribution. The Code Converter utility can be used to automate bulk searches within and bulk edits to an applications code. This utility is in a usable form. However, it is still a work in progress and is likely to undergo substantial changes as it evolves.
Added two new utility routines (IsDate.dbl and IsTime.dbl) that are referenced by some of the supplied sample template files.
Corrected a regression that was introduced in the previous release which caused the field loop expansion token <FIELD_SQL_ALTNAME> not to default to using the actual field name if no alternate name was present.
Performed an extensive code review and cleanup, updating the code in several areas to take advantage of new features available in the Synergy compiler, and also improving efficiency.
Fixed an issue that was causing the CreateFile utility -r (replace file) option to fail, an existing file would not be replaced even if the -r option was specified.
Fixed an issue in the CreateFile utility that would result in an unhanded exception in the event that invalid key information was passed to XCALL ISAMC.
Made some minor code changes to allow CodeGen to be built in a .NET Core environment and we hope to be able to leverage .NET Core to once again support the use of CodeGen on non-Windows systems (starting with Linux) in the near future.
This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3d and requires a minimum Synergy version of 10.1.1 to operate.

Symphony Framework Components

We no longer ship the Symphony Framework sample templates with CodeGen. You can obtain the latest Symphony Framework templates from the Symphony Framework web site (http://www.symphonyframework.net).
There were no Symphony Orchestrator changes in this release.
There were no Symphony Framework CodeGen Extensions changes in this release.

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CodeGen 5.2.2 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on October 25, 2017 at 3:00 pm

We are delighted to announce the availability of the CodeGen version 5.2.2 release that includes the following enhancements and changes:

CodeGen Version 5.2.2 Release Notes

Added a new field loop expansion token <FIELD_FORMATSTRING> which can be used to access a fields format string value.
Added a new command-line option -utpp which instructs CodeGen to treat user-defined tokens as pre-processor tokens. This means that user-defined tokens are expanded much earlier during the initial tokenization phase, which in turn means that other expansion tokens may be embedded within the values of user-defined tokens.
Removed the RpsBrowser utility from the distribution; it was an experimental project that was never completed.

This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3d and requires a minimum Synergy version of 10.1.1 in order to operate.

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Tags: CodeGen

CodeGen 5.2.1 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on August 24, 2017 at 2:10 pm

We are pleased to announce the release of CodeGen 5.2.1 which includes several new features that significantly extend the possibilities for what can be generated. The core goal for this release was to introduce new features that make it possible to sub-divide the processing of large loops into smaller units of code, and by doing so make it possible to achieve new things, especially when working with very large structures.

For example, the reference code that demonstrates how to implement the replication of ISAM data to a relational database (https://github.com/SteveIves/SqlReplicationIoHooks) previously had a restriction that it could only deal with files (tables) with up to 252 fields (columns). The underlying reason for this related to the maximum number of arguments that can be passed to an external routine, %SSC_BIND in this case. The restriction of 252 available data parameters to %SSC_BIND meant that bad code would be produced for any structure with more than that number of fields. Now however, using some of the new features in CodeGen 5.2.1, the template has been re-structured so that %SSC_BIND will be called multiple times if necessary, removing the previous restriction.

But that’s just one example, there are doubtless many more. Here are the release notes for the new version:

We added several a new generic expression token <IF COUNTER_n_op_value> that allows you to write conditional template code based on testing the current value of the two internal template counters against a simple numeric expression. Here is an example of using this new expression:

<IF CODEGEN_COUNTER_1_EQ_10>
Code to include for every 10th item
</IF>

We added several new loop utility expression tokens that allow you to write conditional template code based on the total number of items that will be processed by a loop, the number of items that have already been processed, or how many remain to be processed, either including or excluding the current item. The new expressions are <IF PROCESSED_EXCLUSIVE_op_value>, <IF PROCESSED_INCLUSIVE_op_value>, <IF REMAINING_EXCLUSIVE_op_value>, <IF REMAINING_INCLUSIVE_op_value> and <IF TOTAL_ITEMS_op_value>. Here is an example of using one of these new expressions:

<IF TOTAL_ITEMS_LT_50>
Code for a small number of items.
<ELSE>
Code for a larger number of items.
</IF>

We added several new loop utility expansion tokens that allow you to insert into generated code the total number of items that will be processed by a loop, the number of items that have already been processed, and the number that are still to be processed, either including or excluding the current item. The new expansion tokens are <PROCESSED_EXCLUSIVE>, <PROCESSED_INCLUSIVE>, <REMAINING_EXCLUSIVE>, <REMAINING_EXCLUSIVE_MAX_n>, <REMAINING_INCLUSIVE>, <REMAINING_INCLUSIVE_MAX_n> and <TOTAL_ITEMS>.
We added a new file header token <REQUIRES_CODEGEN_VERSION> that allows you to specify the minimum version of CodeGen that is required to successfully process a template. Here is an example of using one this new expression:

<REQUIRES_CODEGEN_VERSION>5.2.1</REQUIRES_CODEGEN_VERSION>

We made a minor correction to the documentation of the -f l command line option. The documentation previously stated that this option caused fields marked as “Excluded by Language” to be EXCLUDED from field loop processing, but actually such fields are excluded by default. The -f l command line option actually suppresses this behavior, causing such fields to be INCLUDED in field loop processing.
This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3c and requires a minimum Synergy run-time version of 10.1.1.

The latest version of CodeGen can always be downloaded here.

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Tags: CodeGen

CodeGen 5.1.9 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on May 12, 2017 at 8:45 am

I am pleased to announce that we have just released a new version of CodeGen (5.1.9) that contains some new features that were requested by customers. The changes in this release are as follows:

We added two new structure expansion tokens <FILE_ODBC_NAME> and <FILE_RPS_NAME> that expands to the repository ODBC table name or structure name of the first file definition that is assigned to the structure being processed.
We made a slight change to the way that the multiple structures command line option (-ms) is processed, allowing it to be used when only one repository structure is specified. This allows for templates that use the <STRUCTURE_LOOP> construct to be used when only one structure is being processed.
We also fixed an issue that was causing the <FIELD_SPEC> token to produce incorrect values for auto-sequence and auto-timestamp fields. Previously the value 8 would be inserted, now the correct value i8 is inserted.

This version of CodeGen was built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3c and requires a minimum Synergy runtime version of 10.1.1. You can download the new version directly from the CodeGen Github Repository.

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CodeGen 5.1.7 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on February 7, 2017 at 10:25 am

We are pleased to announce that Professional Services has just released CodeGen 5.1.7. The main feature of the release is the addition of experimental support for generating code for the MySQL and PostgreSQL relational databases. Developers can use a new command line option -database to specify their database of choice. This causes the SQL-compatible data types that are injected by the field loop expansion token <FIELD_SQLTYPE> to be customized based on the chosen database. The default database continues to be Microsoft SQL Server.

Before we consider support for these new databases to be final we would appreciate any feedback from developers working with MySQL or PostgreSQL to confirm whether we have chosen appropriate data type mappings. Additional information can be found in the CodeGen documentation.

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Tags: CodeGen

CodeGen 5.1.6 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on November 7, 2016 at 4:31 pm

I am pleased to announce that we have just released a new version of CodeGen with the following enhancements:

We modified the way that key loops are processed so that if a repository structure has a mixture of access keys and foreign keys defined, the foreign keys are ignored when processing key loops.
We added a new key loop expression <IF FIRST_SEG_NOCASE>.
We added four new field loop expressions <IF AUTO_SEQUENCE>, <IF AUTO_TIMESTAMP>, <IF AUTO_TIMESTAMP_CREATED> and <IF AUTO_TIMESTAMP_UPDATED> which can be used to determine if fields are defined as auto sequence or auto time-stamp fields.
We added two new key loop expressions <IF AUTO_TIMESTAMP_CREATED> and <IF AUTO_TIMESTAMP_UPDATED>.
We added two new key segment loop expressions <IF SEG_AUTO_TIMESTAMP_CREATED> and <IF SEG_AUTO_TIMESTAMP_UPDATED>.
We changed the behavior of the field loop expansion token <FIELD_TYPE_NAME> when used in conjunction with auto-sequence and auto-time-stamp fields.

This version of CodeGen is built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3a, requires a minimum Synergy runtime version of 10.1.1, and can be downloaded from here.

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CodeGen 5.1.4 Released

By Steve Ives, Posted on July 29, 2016 at 10:42 am

We are pleased to announce that we have just released CodeGen V5.1.4. The main change in this version is an alteration to the way that CodeGen maps Synergy time fields, i.e. TM4 (HHMM) and TM6 (HHMMSS) fields, to corresponding SQL data types via the <FIELD_SQLTYPE> field loop expansion token. Previously these fields would be mapped to DECIMAL(4) and DECIMAL(6) fields, resulting in time fields being exposed as simple integer values in an underlying database. With this change it is now possible to correctly export time data to relational databases.

We also made a small change to the CodeGen installation so that the changes that it makes to the system PATH environment variable occur immediately after the installation completes, meaning that it is no longer necessary to reboot the system after installing CodeGen on a system for the first time.

This version of CodeGen is built with Synergy/DE 10.3.3a and requires a minimum Synergy runtime version of 10.1.1.

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Tags: CodeGen

Replicating Data to SQL Server – Made Easy

By Steve Ives, Posted on July 28, 2016 at 5:29 pm

For some time now we have published various examples of how to replicate ISAM data to a relational database such as SQL Server in near to real time. Until now however, all of these examples have required that the ISAM files that were to be replicated needed be modified by the addition of a new “replication key” field and the addition of a corresponding key in the file. Generally this new field and key would be populated with a timestamp value that was unique to each record in the file. While this technique guarantees that every ISAM file can be replicated, it also made it hard work to do so because the record layout and key configuration of each ISAM file needed to be changed.

However, almost all ISAM files already have at least one unique key, and when that is the case one of those existing those keys could be used to achieve replication without requiring changes to the original record layouts or files. When this technique is combined with the capabilities of I/O hooks it is now possible to achieve data replication with only minimal effort, often with no changes to the ISAM files being replicated, and with only minimal modification of the original application code.

I am pleased to announce that I have just published a new example of doing exactly that. You can find the example code on GitHub at https://github.com/SteveIves/SqlReplicationIoHooks. Of course if you are interested in implementing data replication to a relational database but need some assistance in doing so, then we’re here to help; just contact your Synergex account manager for further information.

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Tags: Data, Replication, SQL, SQL Connection

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