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Highlights of XENTIS Release 5.0
With release 5.0, XENTIS adds new functionality to this popular database report writer and data manager used by many of the Fortune 1000 on their OpenVMS platforms.
XENTIS 5.0 continues to bring you the widest array of report and database functions including features not found in the general report writer. Such features as HTML output, bar codes, sort-on-subtotal, select-on-subtotal, and the ability to work with the leading database products for the VAX,Alpha and Itanium platforms.
A few of the features added or improved with XENTIS 5.0 are:
Run multiple versions:
First, listed here because it is often overlooked by users,... as with previous versions of XENTIS, you may install and run multiple versions of XENTIS (4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 5.0, etc.) at the same time. Hence, when moving from version to version, you do not need to risk a version slash-cut. Install the new version, migrate production to it at the pace with which you are comfortable. We've been in the "IT Production" environment and we know the sleeplessness that can result from having to schedule a slash-cut. Taking this ability into account we remain a little perplexed by the number of XENTIS Maintenance Customers who receive their new version of XENTIS and opt to forego the new functionality by leaving that version on the shelf...
Simplification of upgrading and environmental changes:
While we're talking about upgrading, if you are moving up from a version of XENTIS version 4.2 or newer, XENTIS 5.0 includes a utility that will assist in identifying the customizations you have made to the as-shipped version. This will help you configure XENTIS 5.0 and ease your migration.
Even when you are not upgrading, as many XENTIS shops have thousands of defined reports, changes in the configuration of their computing environment can cause more work than a product upgrade. Thus when configuration changes causes a change to reports that could be accomplished with a global edit, administrators were still faced with attacking report file after report file if they also made extensive use of the Compiled Command Files (XCC). XENTIS Version 5.0 comes with a DCL command procedure that will operate on a directory and compile all XENTIS Command Files into Compiled Command Files.
NEW FEATURES:
1. Report and Report modules (/File, /Word, /Model, /Update).
a. The debug feature has been enhanced. The user can now specify a starting point when most debug messages will be output. The starting point is the number of primary file records processed. This can dramatically reduce the number of debug messages produced. This feature does not affect the "F", meaning File, debug messages. The ability to use this feature is controlled by the XENTISnn_DEBUG_DELAY logical.
For example to have debug messages displayed only beginning with the 60th primary file record, the user would enter the following at DCL prior to running XENTIS:
$DEFINE XENTIS50_DEBUG_DELAY 60
Until the 60th record is processed, only File (F) debug messages will be displayed, if these messages are requested.
b. XENTIS now supports the scaling of packed decimal data described in a Maxcim ECB data dictionary. Turning on or off this capability is controlled by the new MAXCIM-PACKED-SCALE setup parameter. The default value of this parameter is N, meaning the feature is turned off, for compatibility with prior versions.
c. Support for reading XML data has been added. The ability to read XML data is specified by entries in the XENTIS data dictionary. See below section for more information.
d. Writing an XML formatted text file is now supported by the XENTIS/Model feature. A new model control files, XML.DAT, is used to provide this ability. This control file will not work with older versions of XENTIS, as the FORMAT paramter with a value of XML is allowed only with XENTIS version 5.0 or later. The user can make changes to this control file but only if they change the following parameters: LINE-PREFIX, LINE-POSTFIX, LEADING-BLANKS, TRAILING-BLANKS, and DEFAULT_OUTPUT. The LINE-PREFIX and LINE-POSTFIX control the tags used to indicate the start and end of a record.
Reading XML Formatted Data:
XENTIS supports reading XML formatted data from two different types of sources, a text file and an web server using a TCP/IP connection.
a. Support for XML data where the source is a text file is now supported. This is done by entering an "X" at the "Record Format" prompt in the Add File function of the "Edit a Dictionary" menu item. The "Record" tag in the XML data file must match the generic file name entered. There must also exist a field name in the data dictionary under the specified generic file name for each data field that is to be processed from the XML data file. The field types for these fields are limited to the following types: T, STR, YN, GN, TDA, MDY, DMY, and PRD. This means that only character data is allowed in an XML file.
b. Support for XML data where the source is a data stream from a web server is now supported. This is done by entering a "W" at the "Record Format" prompt in the Add File function of the "Edit a Dictionary" menu item. The "Record" tag in the XML data stream must match the generic file name entered. When this feature is used, the user should enter the URL path name of the data source in the "Actual Filename" field. For example, if the data is found in "customers.xml" on the bellevue.acmelectric.com" node, the "Actual Filename" description would be:
http://bellevue.acmelectric.com/customers.xml
This property value must begin with "http://" to avoid file name syntax validation errors upon entry in the data dictionary.
If the URL entered at the Actual Filename prompt is too long, then you may continue the entry in the URL1 through URL6 prompts. Trailing blanks in these entries will be ignored. Note, these prompts are new for version 5.0.
One of the uses of this feature will be to have a CGI script executed on the web server that returns data in XML format to XENTIS.
The URL may also contain placeholders that can be used to pass run time data to a CGI script. These placeholders are of the form ~P-n~, where "n" is a digit from 0 through 8. A example of a URL with placeholders might be:
http://test.myweb.com/test.cgi?state=~P-1~&zip=~P-2~
If placeholders are used in a URL and the associated generic file is specified as a primary file, then the "Key to access", "First record to read" and "Last record to read" prompts are replaced with a sequence of "Parameter Literal (P-n) for Primary File" prompts. Only text literals are allowed to be entered.
If placeholders are used in a URL and the associated generic file is specified as an auxilliary file, then the "Key number to access...by" and "Field n to build key" prompts are replaced with a sequence of "Parameter Value (P-n) for ... File" prompts. Text literals and fields from a prior file are allowed to be entered.
Placeholder zero (0) is a special case. The VMS username will be substituted if placeholder zero is used.
When used an an auxilliary file, XENTIS will treat the XML data stream as an indexed file. This means that XENTIS can join multiple HTTP server XML streams together. In the XENTIS processing logic, instead of performing an indexed file read, XENTIS will open a new connection to the HTTP server and issue a new request for an XML data stream. If the URL is defined correctly, placeholders are used correctly, and the end user correctly specifies paramters, this can result in an elegant solution to retrieving data from dissimilar data sources. If it is done incorrectly, it can result in a massive amount of unrelated data.
In the case of structured XML data, XENTIS supports qualified tags.
PROBLEMS FIXED IN XENTIS V5.0
1. The Filename Info File Creation utility did not work. The workaround was to use the version 4.7 copy of the utility. This utility is found in the XENTIS System Utilities Menu. The purpose of this utility is to improve the speed of displaying file names in the Info (middle) Window of XENTIS/Report when the user has a large data dictionary. It does this by scanning the data dictionary and placing all filenames into a separate special file. If this special file exists, XENTIS/Report retrieves file names from the special file instead of the data dictionary. Changes to the data dictionary are not reflected in this file. This problem was introduced in version 4.8 and has been corrected.
2. Under some circumstances XENTIS/Edit did not correctly write the Change Date or the Add date to the data file, if those properties were defined in the data dictionary. It was writing garbage. This problem was introduced in version 4.8 and has been corrected.
3. In XENTIS/Edit, if a default data dictionary was not defined the user would not be able to enter a data dictionary name. This problem was introduced in version 4.8 and has been corrected.
4. In XENTIS/Report if a report was defined to place report data into a title line and the output of the report was directed to the user's terminal and that terminal was a CRT, or a PC running terminal emulation software, then the the title lines were not updated to reflect the change in data. This problem was introduced in version 4.3 and has been fixed.
5. In XENTIS/Report, the sizes of certain memory areas cleared by the ERASE command were recalculated due to changes in versions 4.5 through 4.8.
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