looking for anyone who knows of or has kept documentation on their remediation from 77 to 81.

I've heard several individuals state things they had to do to get their code to run,but is there a list in one place of these items?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Emily McAllister>,

Mary,
We are actually just finishing up an upgrade from 77 to 81. We hired an IB consultant to help us with it so i'm not sure about documentation but i do know one of the biggest issues we had was in WF8, the includes are fully qualified vs WF7 they are relative.

So in WF7 you could include a fex by doing:

 -INCLUDE domainname/app/somefexname  

Whereas in WF8 you have to supply the full path name to the file for the include to work.

The remediation tool allows you to keep the WF7 style include but i would recommend taking the time to fully qualify the includes if you have the time to do it.

You don't have to use the full path for code that existed in the v7.7.* environment - if you used the WebFOCUS Migration utility to move the v7.7.* MRE content to v8 Repository. "Handles" are created behind the scenes - as long as the preexisting file does not get deleted and recreated in v8, the handle allows for the old style includes. I believe it's a good idea to eventually convert the relative path includes to full path ones, but you can do that post migration.

Francis,
We had issues a few times where the handles would stop working in some of our fexes. We used the remediation utility as well but sometimes if you went into a fex and tried to run it, the handles wouldn't be found and you'd have to change all of the includes in that fex.

quote:

So in WF7 you could include a fex by doing:

-INCLUDE domainname/app/somefexname


Whereas in WF8 you have to supply the full path name to the file for the include to work.

If your running from the reporting server and wanting to include a file that sits on the reporting server, you can still include that way.

-INCLUDE public/myFex.fex

Else you have to use the full path:

-INCLUDE IBFS:/WFC/Repository/domain/app/myFex.fex
-INCLUDE IBFS:/EDA/EDASERVE/domain/app/myFex.fex

Thank you for the input, but I believe there are more than the -include changes correct?

Quite a few. All hardly if at all documented. If they are, good luck finding them buried and scattered inside various nested topics in the online docs. I have a case open about this, and all I got was links to stuff that I've already seen. They even try to tell you in the Upgrade Considerations section that the Web Services URL builds are the new way to reference things in 8.1.05, but that isn't the case. It is "a" way to reference things ONLY IF you have the Web Services Enablement add-on. If you don't, then that article is false. The WFServlet is still the way to go.

JOIN syntax is different;
relative paths must be full paths if pointing to things under Content (new MRE);
Etc.........

Good luck!

We also just started the migration from 7.7 to 8.1.05, other issues we have noticed include -set and -read command syntax has been tightened up, also if you have parameters in your fex that are not initialized you will get the default prompt for those parameters again, after pressing the submit button on the html page, initializing them to FOC_NONE seems to fix the problem, maybe there is an easier fix for that out there since I seem to have a LOT of fexes with this issue. I also have a lot of older html pages that I can not edit in App Studio, if I save any of them after opening them up in the html canvas they do not work, the only documentation I have found for this issue is if they were created pre 7.6 is to open them up in Dev Studio 8 save them then open them up in App Studio? Seems like a strange process to me but I'm guessing there is some kind of needed conversion process going on when you open an html page in Dev studio 8.

Any other WF8 "surprises" to look out for?

For corking your fexes from prompting you for unresolved params, you just need to change your -DEFAULT to -DEFAULTH. If you still are getting prompts, then just make sure you -DEFAULTH them up top somewhere.

thank you for your input! I hope this thread is updated as people find other items, so we can all review the list.

My 2 cents...

1) With WebFOCUS 8 Adapter names(SET DEFAULT CONNECTION) should not be in lower case..

2) Few -RUNs were required after HOLD or SAVE with -READ commands.

Tim P, what does a fully qualified path look like for a fex that's in the basedir like the one below? i thought in 8 the basedir concept went away.
thanks in advance...

quote:

o in WF7 you could include a fex by doing:

-INCLUDE domainname/app/somefexname

Does 'fully qual' apply to includes from the backend as well?

Remediation Follow-Up

Has anybody else found further issues where code that worked in Dev Studio is not working in App Studio?

Specifically:
(1.) Further issues with -READ.
(2.) Looping
(3.) Amper variables not being read?

Thanks to everybody in the WebFocus Nation.

quote:

Has anybody else found further issues where code that worked in Dev Studio is not working in App Studio?

Dev and App Studio are nothing more that the developer tool. WebFOCUS engine behind the scenes does all the work, so if something doesn't work in and one and works in the other, review the code side by side and see what was changed. HINTS, why I don't let applications write my code.

Word Gavin...word! At least as much as I can help it. haha

We found that -READFILE worked better than -READ.
Thanks to everybody who responded.

quote:

Originally posted by susannah:
Tim P, what does a fully qualified path look like for a fex that's in the basedir like the one below? i thought in 8 the basedir concept went away.
thanks in advance...

quote:

o in WF7 you could include a fex by doing:

-INCLUDE domainname/app/somefexname

Does 'fully qual' apply to includes from the backend as well?

So anyone correct me if I am wrong because it can get confusing...
Iif you are trying to include a fex that sits in the repository you have to fully qualify the name like IBFS:/WFC/Repository/folder/fex.fex, i don't know your databases structure but that's the gist of it.

I believe if you are including a fex that sits on the reporting server, like some kind of housekeeping file, you can do it the normal way like you did in WF7.

One other thing we found late in the transition...The migration tool that moves the code from WF7 and WF8 and creates the "handles" that allows you to use WF7 relative paths in WF8 does not work very well. We were told that we would only have to change the includes to full paths if we saved the fex in WF8. This turns out to not be the case as even just opening the fex breaks the relative path handles and all the includes have to be changes to full paths.

Also, -READFILE is amazing....

who determines when this is solved? I would still like this to remain open for further discussion.

Mary, the FocalPoint moderators are a little over-zealous in setting posts to SOLVED, perhaps there was no action on the post for some time...

You can change the status yourself - it's simply some text in the title of the original (first) post. The initiator of a discussion can edit the first post and change the title. I would change [SOLVED] to [STILL OPEN]

Francis - Agreed. The issues are still popping up and we need all the help we can get.

Thanks

One thing that bit us in ReportCaster is that the new version (8) interprets ampersands in text fields in RCaster schedules as amper-variables, whereas the old one (77) did not.

The migration tool does not escape those ampersands, which means that previously working schedules (in 77) suddenly start throwing mysterious errors about missing amper-variables that you'll never have heard of! Turns out they are in the schedules...

IBI told us that RCaster has a configuration option now to keep 'Legacy behaviour' for amper-variables in schedules, but of course that would prevent you from using this (useful) feature.

We have a case (still) open where I'm trying to get IBI to accept that the migration tool should do the right thing there, but there are too many layers within IBI support to get the message through, it seems.

Thank you for the information.

Anyone out there have issues migrating MyReports? that opened in 7 but don't in 8?