Visual Expert 2020 introduces a new ‘Cross References’ tab on the ribbon menu.
It gives direct access to the features related to finding references and dependencies in your project.
How to make use of the ‘Cross References’ tab?
The Cross References menu consists of four different sections:
Find References
Impact Analysis (Tree):
Available for all types of objects, this feature shows all the references to a given item.
Results are presented in treeview with a container hierarchy.
Impact Analysis (Diagram)
The same concept, but results are now presented in the form of a diagram.
Chains of Calls
Call Graph (Tree)
This macro allows you to visualize a chain of calls, and see objects referencing each other.
Results are presented in the form of a treeview.
Call Graph (Diagram):
The same concept, but results are now presented in the form of a diagram.
External References
Stored Procedures Called:
This feature is designed for PowerBuilder projects.
It finds all the stored procedures called by PowerBuilder Objects or Libraries.
Web Services Called:
This feature is designed for PowerBuilder projects.
It finds all the Web Services called by PowerBuilder Objects or Libraries.
By selecting a PB object in the treeview, you can see the exact reference in the PowerBuilder Code.
DLL Functions Called:
This feature is also designed for Powerbuilder projects.
It finds all the dll functions called by PowerBuilder Objects or Libraries.
By selecting a PB object in the treeview, you can see the exact reference in the PowerBuilder Code.
High-level Dependencies
CRUD Matrix (table usage):
This feature will document the CRUD operations performed in your code.
It shows the dependencies between code (objects, functions, procedures, etc.) and data (tables, synonyms, and views).
Anytime an object is referencing a data, it also explains the type of access (Create, Read, Update, Delete).
Select the tables, procedures, functions, etc. for which you want to generate the CRUD matrix.
Visual Expert generates an Excel file containing the CRUD matrix showing how programs access tables for the elements selected in the treeview.
For more details about the CRUD Matrix, you can refer to this tutorial.
Object Dependency Matrix:
This upcoming feature of Visual Expert 2020 is expected this summer.
It will help visualize the dependencies between objects in the form of a matrix.
Dependencies between PBLs:
This feature is designed for Powerbuilder projects. It shows the dependencies between 2 PBLS (i.e. when an object of PBL1 is calling an object from PBL2).
You can customize the result by specifying the number of hierarchy levels.The following screenshot shows an example of a result displaying a 5-level hierarchy.
For more details, read the Cross References Documentation by Visual Expert.