PRO4m has included implementations of project analysis and optimization ideas made working with Progress based projects for many years.

There are similar programs for other tools and languages (e.g. for VB). It is widely used by teams of developers to analyze, write and test software. These tools were invented because of demand for a more stable program code, shorter terms, and increased developers work efficiency.

PRO4m main goals:

1. Decrease time to map a project.
2. Increase understanding of a project.
3. Improve project performance and optimization.
4. Simplify code and programs structure.
5. Manage project changes history.

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Written in Progress 4GL v9 for Windows, PRO4m helps both create efficient program code and reduce code analysis and development time (with big accent on the project code analysis).

PRO4m does include the following utilities and components:

1. "Source Code Scanner"
2. "Project Data TreeView Browser"
3. "Reports Generator"
4. "Programs Header Generator"
5. "Dynamic DB Browser"
6. "DB Data Copy"
7. "Records Lock Monitor" (replaced by ProAppmon since v3.00.00)
8. "Prolint GUI outputhandler" (in 3PRO package)
9. BECOM (Better Code Maker)
10. ProAppmon (Progress Applications Monitor) (ENT version only)
11. Code Analysis

1. "Reports Generator" builds related HTML reports, where the usage mode is a daily procedure of project scanning and report generating, which can be used by all members of development team, and which can be placed for the public access on a LAN or on the Company Internet/Intranet website.

The report contains the following information:

• Progress project general statistics, where the general information about source-code and database is generalized;
• List of all project files (*.p *.w *.i), with its description taken from files (similar to Java Documentation), and comments to them (for example: 'not used module', 'not compiled module');
• Project changes history - everyday project statistics that includes added, updated and deleted project files;
• Project Analysis information, including:
  • not found files (files used in the project, but not found on a disk in PROPATH),
  • not used files (existing project files, but not used in the project), conflict file names (files with identical names and in different folders of the project, and files with identical names, but with different extensions (for example:abc.p and abc.w, because finally, both files will be compiled in abc.r, where the results of application operations could be unexpected), and
  • not compiled project modules including compilation error messages;
• Database Analysis information, including:
  • not used database indexes (not used by any module of the project),
  • redundant indexes (duplicated database indexes waste the disk space and slow down the application performance),
  • whole-index searches (FIND, FOR EACH, etc. operators, which completely, or partially do not use available database indexes);
  • not created foreign keys list , which are probably required to be added to the database schema, and
  • not defined table lock/share lock, used in FIND, FOR EACH and OPEN QUERY operators of all project modules;
• Database tables list is DB tables names and labels, it contains the diagnostic information about table Primary Key ('PK not exist', 'PK not unique') and warning, in a case the tables are not used by the project modules;
• Database changes history - is historical information on changes made in the logic DB structure: database tables, fields and indexes;
• Database table information contains more detailed information on DB tables, namely: Key, Name, Label, Data type, Format, Extent, Default value, View-as phrase with information whether it is field
  • foreign key,
  • primary key or
  • alternative key (unique, but not primary index) member.
  Database table information contains DB Indexes, its description and structure (table fields), indicating whether the
  • index is used in the project;
  • index is redundant;
• table relations (parent and child table relations including fields names and manually joint tables);
• the list of modules,
• where DB table is used;
• not defined foreign keys,
• fields usage analysis, and
• indexes usage analysis.
• Project modules information is a report created for each module of the project. It contains the following:
  • parent modules list (modules of the project calling the current module);
  • module calls tree designed considering not only external calls of the project (*.p *.w *.i *.r), but also the internal structure of the module, including:
  • calls of internal procedures and user-defined functions;
  • input/output parameters list;
  • defined shared resources list;
  • shared variables usage analysis;
  • internal functions defined list;
  • internal procedures defined list;
  • used external procedures list;
  • used internal functions list;
  • used internal procedures list;
  • includes used list,
  • used OS programs list;
  • DB tables used list, DB indexes used list (thus a diagnostic warning will be given on each unused internal procedure, function and non-indexed search in DB);
  • not defined DB tables lock;
  • internal procedures specification, i.e. description and input-output parameters;
  • Prolint report;
  • module source code;
  • source, debug and XREF listings;
  • module changes history, and
  • 'module not found' and 'module not compiled' diagnostic warnings.

  PRO4m provides set of cross-references between HTML pages to ensure convenient navigation in the project report and in the DB structure. Thus HTML-Browser functionality could be completely used, such as bookmarks, navigation "forward" / "back", search on page and other.

2. "Programs Header Generator", the second function of PRO4m, is less pretentious in its capabilities, but is able to do operations that no other Progress utilities can do so far.

"Programs Header Generator" is intended to automatically generate the headers of the project 4GL modules and to support automatically logging of the module changes history. It should be used to generate a program header every time a module development/update is finished. With the header template in PRO4m, files can easily be adjusted according to the company program header format. An example of a generated program header is here. Header template delivered with PRO4m is here.

3. "Dynamic DB Browser". The program allows browsing/editing of the DB contents (including system tables). It allows

• sorting and filtering of the tables contents for any connected database;
• navigating in Parent-Child DB tables;
• viewing the meta scheme of database, etc.
• exporting database tables into the txt, html, xls and DIF formats,
• perform tables data analysis for broken child->parent table links
• and many more nice features

This utility is a very powerful while debugging and testing programs and while investigating an application DB, its structure and contents.

Dynamic DB Browser is simple to use and has only one basic window, which in turn, consists of five major logically related parts:

• Lists of DB tables;
• Frame of detailed information;
• Query Editor;
• Functional buttons;
• Data Browser.

See the our online documentation for more detailed Dynamic DB Browser information.

DB Browser is a very powerful utility and is one of the best known program in its class.

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	PRO4m PROJECT REPORT (all pages automatically generated)
		PROJECT MAIN PAGE
		PROJECT FILES LIST
			Project Module Report
				Module Changes History
				Module Source Code
				Prolint Report (since v2.00)
				Code Analysis (since v2.02)
				Source Listing
				Debug Listing
				XREF Listing
				Used In Modules
				Module Calls Tree
				Module I/O Parameters
				Shared Resources Defined
				Internal Functions Defined
				Internal Procedures Defined
				External Procedures Used
				Internal Functions Used
				Internal Procedures Used
				Includes Used
				O/S Programs Used
				DB Tables Usage (since v2.01)
				DB Indexes Used
				No Table Lock Definition (since v1.08)
				Internal Procedures Specification
				Module Controls defined (since v1.12)
		CHANGES HISTORY
			Updated Files
			New Files
			Deleted Files
		PROJECT ANALYSIS
			Not Found Files
			Not Used Files
			Conflict File Names
			Not Compiled Modules
		DATABASE ANALYSIS
			Not Used Indexes
			Redundant Indexes (since v1.11)
			Whole-Index Search
			Foreign Keys Not Defined
			Not Defined Table Lock/Share Lock
		CODE ANALYSIS (since v2.02)
			DATASERVER Compatibility (since v4.05)
			UNIX Compatibility
			SORT-ACCESS, SORT-BY-EXP
			NO-UNDO Declarations (since v4.05)
			ADD-LAST entries
			PRODOC (since v4.06)
			SHARED VARIABLES Usage Analysis
		DATABASE TABLES LIST
			DB Changes History
			All Tables Structure
			DB Table Structure
				Table Structure
				Table Relations
				Table Triggers
				Possible Indexes Required
				Tables Usage Analysis (since v2.01)
				Fields Usage Analysis (since v2.02)
				Indexes Usage Analysis (since v3.02)
		PROJECT CONTROLS DEFINED (since v1.12)
		MISCELLANEOUS

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Code Analysis deserves its own section.

This is the place where you can write your own parser method to find and to show it on the project report pages the things you want. This is an open-source part of the tool, which you can modify, extend, improve etc in the way you want.

There is a group of the open-source modules located in usrParser PRO4m directory, where all the methods are located. Writing new methods is quite simple since there is many examples for each method type. Most often you'll not to have to write reporting part at all - a standard one may be just enough for you.

Some methods, like PRODOC (JAVADOC analogue in Progress), represented by just one program file, and, extending it by adding more PRODOC keywords you don't have to write a single line of program code.

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• Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP;
• Progress v9 or v10 license (able to compile .P code) - Progress Development license;
• ~10MB on a Hard drive plus space for the projects;

Limitations:

• Progress v9.0 or higher to run PRO4m;
• Progress 4GL source code files for UNIX should be converted into the Windows format (to have the Windows-style 2 characters EOL) files;

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Aug 2005 : PRO4m v4.05.00 released.

Jun 2005 : PRO4m v4.04.00 released.

Now also available for PROGRESS v10

Jun 2003 : PRO4m v 3.03.00 release. New for this release is Project Data TreeView Browser for :

• module structure
• module calls tree
• Prolint results
• user-defined parser results

See the Project Data TreeView Browser documentation page.

May 2003 : PRO4m v3.02.00 release. Indexes Usage Analysis report has been added to each database table report page.

Apr 2003 : PRO4m v3.01.00 release. ProAppmon v1.06 is included where many changes have been done to ProAppmon since the first release. Dynamic DB Browser's got few nice little features making the database data viewing easier and more convenient. New Confirmation ID will be used starting from this release.

Mar 2003 : PRO4m v3.00.00 release. ProAppmon (Progress Applications Monitor) replaces Records Lock Monitor.

Feb 2003 : PRO4m v2.06.00 release. Dynamic DB Browser exports queries data into the following formats: HTML, comma (or any other delimiter) separated text file and into MS EXCEL.

Jan 2003, v2.05.00 : BECOM (BEtter COde Maker) was included into the 3PRO package.

Oct 2002, v2.04.00 : Manual Tables Join functionality is expanded and much flexible now, WHERE phrases are available for Parent and Child tables join definition.

Sep 2002, v2.03.00 : Shared Variables Usage analysis report makes the applications analysis much easier now!

Aug 2002, v2.02.00 : Lots of improvements from the tables and fields usage reports to the User-defined open-source parser and reporting.

Jul 2002, v2.01.00 : The "Big Projects" or "fast PRO4m" version is released. Now PRO4m able to handle big projects (tested on ~15000 files).

Jun 2002: v2.00.00 : 3PRO version i.e. integrated with Prolint and Proparse PRO4m. Now you can enjoy all the analysis results on our smart pages (project report pages).

Jun 2002: v1.12.00 : Project Controls functionality is added, IgnoreList functionality expanded, Performance and Integrity analysis - improved.

May 2002: v1.11.04 : Redundant Database Indexes analysis is added to the PRO4m Performance report page.

May 2002: v1.11.00 : Any possible project file extension is recognizable by PRO4m now (previously recognized only *.i, *.w, *.p, *.r and *.wrx project files). Extensions list can by modified by means of the ProjectExtProc, ProjectExtInc, and ProjectExtBin project configuration file (.prj) parameters.

May 2002: v1.10.00 : Universal DB Data Copy utility has been included to the PRO4m, many improvements done to the existing utilities, bugs fixes done.

April 2002: v1.09.03 : More than one simultaneously connected database is allowed in PRO4m now, Project Data load speed is decreased on 15-20%, DB Browser UI made even more flexible and user-friendly.

February 2002 : v1.09.02 : Added integration with VSS.

January 2002 : v1.09.00 : "Scanner and Report Builder AutoStart Scheduler" is added to PRO4m.

December 2001 : v1.08.00 : New reports are added - "No Table Lock Definition" and "Fields Use Analysis", new features are added to the "DB Browser", and PRO4m is Win95 & 98 compatible now.

November 2001 : v1.07.00 : "Records Lock Monitor" utility is added to PRO4m.

September 2001 - November 2001 : v1.01 - v1.06 : are series of minor improvements implemented according to the results of PRO4m operation in one of Moscow companies (one of the first our clients).

September 2001 : v1.00 : first commercial PRO4m version.

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	Australia
	Austria
	Belgium
	Canada
	France
	Ireland
	Netherlands
	USA
	Russia
	Switzerland

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Starting from v1.09 PRO4m exist in two different editions - a LITE and a PRO edition, where the LITE edition does not include the following features:

- HTML Reports Generator,
- AutoStart scheduler, and
- ProAppmon.