One of the best parts of the new IDE is that every control type has its own designer: open it in-place, tweak the editable properties, and inspect the repository metadata. We live in these designers every day when we open a form, a program, a popup, or even a menu.
What’s less obvious is that there’s also a designer for object code. It turns a lot of “system sleuthing” from writing code to take object code apart into something closer to browsing.
To get to it: File → Open → Entity, then choose Stored Procedure Executables.
Here's an example of using the designer to look at RLIST
Open RLIST and the first thing you notice is how readable fragments are more easily visible due to them being plain text. Once you recognise the layout, that visibility gives you quick signals about what the routine is doing and which external routines it calls.
On the right, the ObjectCode Properties panel tells you the basics immediately: RLIST is a subroutine (not a function) and it takes five parameters. The parameter names are obscured, but the Options button expands a popup showing the full list clearly.
That’s the tool in the abstract. Here’s where it becomes genuinely useful.
You can think of some theoretical ways of approaching the problem, but someone else must have had this issue surely? Chances are someone’s already solved this inside RTI — so let’s search.
A concrete use: “How many users are in the system right now?”
We can safely discard most of those if what we are looking for is a routine from RTI to GET the USERCOUNT.
Let's try opening that up in the designer
It's a function. If you call it with three blank variables, it populates them with:
- current active user count
- total licence count
- licences remaining
One caveat: it only works when called with the UD in place.
I’m sure you’ll find your own favourite uses for the object code designer, but if you haven’t tried it yet, it’s worth five minutes. If you’ve ever had to take object code apart by hand, this saves real time.
| Making Databases Happen |
USA +1 267 238 3814
|