Hi All,
can someone explain me the Debugging strategy in webfocus.
please suggest me the best way that Debugging is accomplished in webfocus tool.
suppose if i get an error in webfocus then suggest me the best way to approach to get rid of the error.

thanks all..

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

This very much depends on the type of error you get.

If the agent crashes, then you will probably have to turn tracing on, on the server.

If you get an error, always check the first error found, not the last.

There should be a line number with the error, it should be the line the error is on. Sometimes it can be the previous error.

Always research the error, understand what the message means, and any hints as to what the error is about, like the field name or column number, etc.

With difficult errors, I always start breaking the report down, to find the cause, Add a breakpoint (-EXIT), and then test to see if the report works to this point correctly.

Turn code echoing on with -SET &ECHO=ALL;, this can highlight issues.

Turn SQL tracing on with:

SET TRACEOFF  = ALL
SET TRACEON   = SQLAGGR//CLIENT
SET TRACEON   = STMTRACE//CLIENT
SET TRACEON   = STMTRACE/2/CLIENT
SET TRACEUSER = ON

This could highlight issues with SQL generation against the tables.

There are many more things that could be done, but as mentioned before, it is relative to the type of debugging needed.

thanks WAZ..

Sure wish we could step through/over over code, inspect variables, set watches etc. like a real IDE. Setting breakpoints and staring at another window is a real PITA.

Just my 2-cents worth.

Well, I think debugging a WebFOCUS program is quite easy and very manageable - after all it's a reporting ;language, not much can go wrong if you write good, clean code.

But still, even if you do have the most clean code, it is possible that to the innocent user/developer it seems that strange things are happening. And then it is good to know what debugging option you have available to you.

They've been well documented in FocalPoint.

Does anyone remember the, I think, mainframe Modify, where you could step through the process, and check variables. I think it was also in PC/FOCUS, and FOCUS Six.

Sure thing, MODIFY FILE xxx DEBUG ...
I seem to remember that there is also a debug feature available for maintain. Don't exactly remember how to use it, though.

With MODIFY FILE xxx DEBUG just look at //HLIPRINT DD statement.

Yes I still use the mainframe for for somethings. When faced with a 250 million records with a record length of 5000 characters and three occurs 24 segments, I will take that good old mainframe channel speed anytime

When debugging, the first question is where is the error happening. Is it in the Dialogue Manager, the data base retrieval (SQL etc), the table request, the Web-focus style sheet, the java script or the HTML?

To help locate the problem I will SET XRETREIVAL OFF, comment out the style sheet, use the previous mentioned -SET &ECHO=ALL; and of course the JAVA script debugger.