Robelle Tech: Qedit as a Window to Suprtool

August 2001

Get the most out of your Robelle Tools

Qedit as a Window to Suprtool

By Robyn Rennie

I maintain a number of job streams which check the integrity of our production databases. They do this by executing Suprtool tasks which check for valid data values. These job streams have grown over time and may now contain over 1,000 lines of intermixed MPE commands and Suprtool tasks. They can also take many minutes to complete and it is not something which should be tested during the day. So maintaining and testing them had become a big problem for me.

I found a technique so I could change and test the jobs any time I wish. The solution was to use the HOST command facility within Qedit for Windows. This allows me to edit a Suprtool job and execute portions of it on the server host while I am debugging.

I open my host job stream in Qedit For Windows. It consists of code portions like this:

!comment
!comment If a customer has SA outstanding in
!comment d-products, must have update flag in master
!comment
get m-customer
if sa-outstanding = “SA”
sort account-no
extract account-no,company-name
output m-cust,link,temp
xeq
get d-products
...

To test this piece of code without streaming the whole jobstream I can simply add the lines:

run suprtool.pub.robelle
base kco.db

after the last !comment, and replace the xeq with an exit.

Figure 1 shows how I select all the lines between the “run suprtool” and the “exit,” use the right mouse button and choose “run selection as host command.” This causes the host command dialog box to pop up.

Figure 2 shows my commands executed with the results showing in the box.

When I have finished debugging this section of the job stream I need to remember to remove the “run suprtool,” “base” and “exit” lines and save my file.

But I didn’t have to run the entire job stream, and work late to schedule the run!