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HAMMER THECOMPETITIONWITH POWERBUILDER®The market’s favorite RAD tool for creatingWeb, desktop, “occasionally connected” andtablet PC applications. With PowerBuilder youcan enhance web application performancewith XHTML Web DataWindow. TMYou can alsoaccess your favorite RDBMS using ADO.NET,display data from different character setsin one DataWindow with Unicode, or addhandwritten notes and signature collection withINK controls support.Learn more about the power of Powerbuilderat sybase.com/powerbuilder© Copyright 2005 Sybase, Inc.. All rights reserved.

“The technology behindthe scenes is transparentto our clients. Theyrealize the benefits of it,though, in our ability tohandle transactions inhalf the time of ourcompetitors and at amuch lower cost.”— Glenn Santa Cruzcomponent types as well as multipleplatforms. After investigating itsoptions, DailyAccess found its solutionin Sybase EAServer.EAServer Allows Code Reuse,Eliminates Cost and Risk ofRewriting“When we found that we were growingfaster than what our systems couldsupport, we knew we needed to dosomething to allow us to scale inresponse to the demand,” says SantaCruz. “We needed something thatwould support large numbers of concurrentrequests. We also wanted tomaintain our intellectual investment inthe Sybase PowerBuilder code we’ddeveloped as well as preserve our hardwareinvestments. Sybase EAServer fitthe bill quite well. It allowed us to reuseour Sybase PowerBuilder code, to avoida costly and risky rewrite of our existingsystems. Its ability to run SybasePowerBuilder, Java, C/C++, and CORBAcomponents in a unified environmentwith seamless communication betweenthem provided us great flexibility as welooked ahead to adding functionalityand creating new applications. WithSybase EAServer, we’re free to choosethe best technology for the particulartask rather than being locked into asingle component type.”For example, DailyAccess has foundthat Sybase PowerBuilder works bestfor developing reporting functionality,while Java is a better choice for otherfunctionality such as implementingXML handling, external sockets, andregular expressions for text processing.‘EAServer Is So Reliable,You Don’t Even KnowIt’s There’“By moving much of our code – ourbusiness logic – to Sybase EAServer,”says Doug Porter, a software developerat DailyAccess, “it’s much easier torefresh our code and to apply hot fixeswhen they’re required. Its cross-platformsupport is also quite beneficial.Thanks to Sybase EAServer, we nowhave the ability to use the right programminglanguage for the right job onthe right platform. Best of all,” Porteradds, “Sybase EAServer is so reliable,you don’t even know it’s there. It justruns, and that lets us focus on otherthings. It’s transparent to our customers,but it’s the key to the uptime they see,which is very important to them.”Perhaps above all, DailyAccessrequires reliability. “In our market, failureis not an option,” says Santa Cruz.“If we deploy a system that doesn’t giveour customers the confidence that theirrequests or transactions are being handledpromptly and accurately, they’regoing to feel that their retirement plansare at risk. One of the best things wecan say about Sybase EAServer is thatit’s been extremely stable.”“As we look ahead,” Santa Cruzadds, “I think we’re evolving into a fullblownWeb application that’s hosted onSybase EAServer. We’ve still got a largeamount of code that we want to move“We needed somethingthat would support largenumbers of concurrentrequests. We also wantedto maintain our intellectualinvestment in the SybasePowerBuilder code we’ddeveloped. SybaseEAServer fit the bill quitewell. It allowed us to reuseour PowerBuilder code,to avoid a costly andrisky rewrite of ourexisting systems.”— Glenn Santa Cruzonto Sybase EAServer so it can beshared across all of our applications.The bottom line is that for us to remaincompetitive, we need to be nimble.That means automating as much as wecan behind the scenes to increase efficiencyand keep costs low. SybaseEAServer enables us to do that. ▼…This article is reprinted with permission fromSybase Incorporated.~continued from page 3~JavaServer Faces DataWindowexpect the GUI layer to interact with the business logic classes, notbypass the business logic and object-relational mapping layers.• I think it’s past time (both for the JSF DataWindow and DataWindow.NET)that we got rid of the PBL, as least for DataWindowobjects. In both environments, it’s counter-intuitive to put a collectionof source code from different objects into a single non-humanreadable file. It also causes problems with source control systems, inwhich you’ll want to be able to check out a particular DataWindowObject, not the entire PBL. Given that the source controls systems inthese two IDEs are file based, it’s time that the DataWindow controland the DataStore can be assigned with a file that represents theDataWindow object source. Further, it would be an additionaladvantage if the DataWindow object syntax in that file could besaved in XML format.One of the significant new features introduced with DataWindow.NET2.0 is the ability to work directly with .NET DataSets andDataTables. That makes working with DataWindow.NET more intuitivefor seasoned .NET developers. What JSF DataWindow will needto really capture the attention of seasoned Java developers is some ofthe same thinking. There needs to be some way to use Java classes asthe data source rather than expecting the JSF DataWindow to beallowed to directly access the database.Don’t get me wrong. I think a Java 4GL would be a good thing, primarilybecause of how much time it takes to get anything done usinga 3GL. But there’s some mindset hurdles to overcome, and it will takemore than just a great product to overcome them. It will also takemarketing and marketplace presence, something that Sybase hasn’tbeen doing well for individual products for some time. ▼6 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

Never write another SQL insert, update,or delete statement as long as you live.While DataWindow® .NET is easy to use, it is also very flexible,giving you complete control over the look and feel of your databoth at design time and programmatically at runtime.DataWindow .NET is the only .NET component that can be used fordata entry forms and reports! Use the power of patented technologyto visually create the data access and presentation layers of yourWindows Forms, ASP .NET and Tablet PC applications.Easily access data fromany data source andpresent ityour way.You no longer need toworry about writingSQL insert,update ordelete statements,DataWindow .NETdoes the heavy liftingfor you!More than just a grid control, theDataWindow offers 10 presentationstyles including Graph, Crosstab,and TreeView.Find out for yourself how powerful, yet easy to useDataWindow .NET really is. Visitwww.sybase.com/datawindow.net for more informationand to download an evaluation copy or call (800) 8 SYBASEand take your .NET application development to the next level!Copyright © 2005 Sybase, Inc.All Rights Reserved. All productand company names are trademarksof their respective owners.

Word Excel OutlookOffice 97 VBAWRD8.HLP VBAXL8.HLP VBAOUTL.HLPOffice 2000 VBAWRD9.CHM VBAXL9.CHM VBAOUTL9.CHMOffice XP VBAWD10.CHM VBAXL10.CHM VBAOL10.CHMTABLE 1 | VBA Help Files for Microsoft Office ApplicationsFIGURE 1 | The VBA scripting utility available within Microsoft Officeproducts+++...n_cst_ole_word_97of_connect ()of_visible (boolean ab_status)of_open (string as_filename)...: integer: integer: integer...n_cst_word+ inv_word : n_cst_ole_word+ of_connect (): integer+ of_disconnect () : integer+ of_visible: integer(boolean ab_status)... ......inv_wordn_cst_ole_word# inv_word : oleobject# inv_const : n_cst_constants_word_ole+ of_connect (): integer+ of_disconnect (): integer+ of_visible (boolean ab_status) : integer... ......+++...n_cst_ole_word_2000of_connect (): integerof_visible (boolean ab_status) : integerof_open (string as_filename) : integer......n_cst_constants_word_oleis because it’s not installed by default but instead requires a custominstallation of Microsoft Office. The documentation is provided as a setof help files as indicated in Table 1.The VBA scripting utility that comes with those products also containsan object browser that can be used to determine which functionsare accessible on different objects and the syntax for using them (seeFigure 1). You access the VBA scripting utility from Tools->Macro->Visual Basic Editor within the application, and then the object browseris available from the toolbar, from the View menu item, or by hittingF2. From within the VBA Scripting utility you can bring up the documentationfor a particular method, property, or event by hitting F1after selecting it (assuming that the help files have been installed).The second issue raised above is the compatibility between versionsof the same target application. Fortunately, at least with theMicrosoft products, there is a fairly easy way to determine which versionof the target application is installed. (This will be demonstratedonce we get into the source code.) In addition, the OLE Automation+++...+++...wd100Wordswd10Percentwd10Sentences...: long: long: long...inv_constn_cst_ole_word_XPof_connect ()of_visible (boolean ab_status)of_open (string as_filename))...FIGURE 2 | Class diagram for OLE automation implementation objects= -4= -6= -2...: integer: integer: integer...syntax for these applications is highly backward-compatible. Whenobjects (or methods, properties, or events of an object) are depreciatedby Microsoft in a new version of the application, they usually markthose as “hidden.” Hidden objects (or methods, properties, or events)still work with the newer version, but they don’t appear in the objectmodel for that new version. Obviously, because each new version ofthe application adds additional features that were not present in earlierversions, the syntax developed using a newer version of the objectmodel will not always work for an older version.As mentioned previously, PowerBuilder uses late binding to interfacewith OLE Automation objects, so we are unable to use the constantsprovided in the Word type library. However, Microsoft does providean Excel spreadsheet on their MSDN site that contains all of theconstants and their values used within Office. (Those constants arealso defined in the Microsoft supplied help files and can be browsedusing the VBA scripting utility.) I downloaded that file and used thatinformation to create an autoinstantiating nonvisual user object thatcould be used for a similar purpose as the type library, at least withrespect to the constants (see Figure 2).The n_cst_constants_word_ole class contains the constants and isdefined as an instance variable on another class, n_cst_ole_word. Thatclass is basically a “virtual” class; it’s never actually called directly.Instead, descendants of it are created to handle each of the differentversions of Word we might actually interact with. The virtual classdetermines which methods we are going to make available, and thedescendants actually implement those methods as appropriate. Thevirtual class returns an error message if the method is called, so if themethod is not implemented on a descendant, it implies that particularversion of Word does not support the method. This allows us to addadditional methods to the virtual class as new versions of Word, andadd new functions and implement them in whichever descendantsactually support them without having to modify the classes representingearlier versions of Word. n_cst_word acts as a wrapper class so thatthe instantiation of the appropriate descendant of n_cst_ole_word andcalls to its methods are handled automatically.In the of_connect method of n_cst_word, the object determineswhich version of Word the user has installed and creates the appropriatedescendant of n_cst_ole_word (see Listing 1).Prior to version 8 of PowerBuilder, the standard method for handlingerrors in OLE Automation was to create a user object that inheritedfrom the OLEObject class and then code its Error and ExternalExceptionevents. Then that class, rather than the OLEObject class, wouldbe used for the ConnectToObject or ConnectToNewObject call. Oneproblem with that approach is that some OLE Automation propertiesand method returns are themselves OLEObjects, and would not allowthemselves to be cast into the descendant user object. Instead, a userobject based on OLEObject would have to be used, and then theSetAutomationPointer function of that object would be used to redirectprocessing to an instance of the custom class.That was all very complicated. It also tended to disassociate theerror-handling logic from the code that was making the call to theobject that caused the error, which made recovery from the errorsomewhat problematic.Fortunately version 8 of PowerBuilder introduced structured exceptionhandling, which greatly simplifies this for us. The object that weare using in this sample to interact with Word is the inv_word instancevariable in the n_cst_word class, and you can see from Figure 3 thatthe class we are using for it is OLEObject. We simply wrap our OLEAutomation calls in a try...catch...end try block and can deal with anyerrors that occur within that block.We’re going to review some of the code from the sample application(which can be downloaded from www.pbdj.sys-con.com), certainly notall of it, just certain code that illustrates some important concepts.The of_visible function determines whether or not Word will actuallybe visible to the end user. It’s fairly straightforward, simply settingthe visible property of the Word application (not a PowerBuilder objectvisible property).10 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

THE STRAIGHT GOODS ON EAServer.BRING APPS TO THE WEBWITHOUT LEAVINGYOUR POWERBUILDERINVESTMENTBEHIND.It’s easy. It’s proven. Sybase EAServer is thecomplete solution with the highest ROIfor moving PowerBuilder applications to theWeb. But don’t just take our word for it. Sierrahave all rapidly web-enabled their PowerBuilder appswith a faster and easier time to market. To discover howyou can leverage your existing investments, check outour ROI Case Study Guide atClub, The Greenbrier Companies and Hennepin County, MN,www.sybase.com/pbextension.Information Anywhere SYBASE e-BUSINESS SOFTWARE.EVERYTHING WORKS BETTER WHEN EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER ṬM©2002 Sybase, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

end tryReturn 1end functionPowerBuilder does not support skipping “optional” arguments inOLE Automation function calls. For example, the Word Documentobject Close function used above takes three optional arguments:• SaveChanges• OriginalFormat• RouteDocumentFIGURE 3 | OLE Control Properties in User Object painterEvent1 :3Event2 :3Event3 :3PBNI OLE ObjectEvent1 :2Event2 :2Event3 :2EventSinkConnectionPointEvent1 :1Event2 :1Event3 :1Since all the arguments are optional, we could have called it withoutpassing any arguments. However, once we start passing arguments,we have to pass all the arguments through the last optional one wewish to pass. That is, we could pass the SaveChanges argument byitself, but we couldn’t pass that OriginalFormat argument by itself.Instead, we would have to pass something for the SaveChanges argumentas well as the OriginalFormat argument (as we have done in thesample). This may not come as much of a surprise to many Power-Builder developers unless they have some Visual Basic background,because that development tool does support skipping optional arguments.PowerBuilder also does not support the use of named notationrather than positional notation for arguments.The of_printpreview demonstrates the use of the AsStatement! keyword.The Word ActiveDocument PrintPreview method doesn’t takeany arguments and doesn’t have a return value, which makes it looklike a property. What’s more, there is a Word PrintPreview property aswell. Therefore, we need to use the AsStatement! to ensure that Power-Builder knows we are attempting to call a function rather than refer toa property.PowerBuilder Client ApplicationFIGURE 4 | Capturing OLE Automation Eventspublic function integer of_visible (boolean ab_status);IF IsNull ( inv_word ) THEN Return -1tryinv_word.Visible = ab_statuscatch (OLERuntimeError MyOLEError )Return -1end tryReturn 1end functionThe of_open function demonstrates the use of multiple catch portionsof the try...catch...end try block to handle different types of errors.public function integer of_open (string as_filename);IF IsNull ( inv_word ) THEN Return -1tryinv_word.Documents.open ( as_filename )catch (OLERuntimeError MyOLEError )Return -1catch (NullObjectError MyNullError )Return -1end tryThe of_close function shows how the constant’s instance variable isused to pass arguments to functions of the OLE object.public function integer of_close ();tryinv_word.Documents.close( &inv_const.wdSaveChanges, &inv_const.wdWordDocument )catch (OLERuntimeError MyOLEError )Return -1OLE Serverpublic function integer of_printpreview ();IF IsNull ( inv_word ) THEN Return -1long ll_typetryll_type = inv_word.ActiveWindow.View.TypeIF ll_type = inv_const.wdPrintPreview THENinv_word.ActiveDocument.ClosePrintPreview()ELSEinv_word.ActiveDocument.PrintPreview( AsStatement! )END IFcatch ( OLERuntimeError MyOLEError )Return -1end tryReturn 1end functionSo far the method we’ve used to interact with OLE Automationmethods and properties is no different from the method we used withOLE Custom Controls. The similarity ends when we come to handlingevents though. While PowerBuilder exposes the events fired by the controlwithin the IDE, it doesn’t do so for OLE Automation. For that matter,few programming languages do, and many OLE Automation targetsfire few – if any – events.Nonetheless, there is a mechanism for capturing OLE Automationevents (see Figure 4), which is explained in some detail in MicrosoftKnowledge Base article 183599. Basically, it’s necessary to create anotherCOM object referred to as an “eventsink” that implements the same“OLE objects store data internally inobjects referred to as “streams,”which are contained within otherobjects called ‘storages’”12 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

© 2003 Sybase, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.4GL RAD ToolsPOWERBUILDERTHE CLASSIC,TRIED-AND-PROVENCLIENT/SERVERDEVELOPMENT TOOL.POWERBUILDERTHE HANG-ONTO-YOUR-SEATCLIENT/SERVERDEVELOPMENT TOOL.For years, PowerBuilder® has reignedas the premier development toolfor client/server applications. Ournewest iteration extends both ourleadership and your investmentin skills and applications forclient/server development. There’sa host of exciting new features.Download all the technical detailsat sybase.com/powerbuilder.Take your client/server applicationsto the next level with the Power-Builder Native Interface. Integrateyour existing and new Power-Builder applications withC and C++ applications. Andeasily work with J2EE and .NETcomponents and applicationsexposed as Web Services. Detailsat sybase.com/powerbuilder.INFORMATION LIQUIDITY.SYBASE INTEGRATION TECHNOLOGIES.E VERYTHING WORKS BETTER WHEN EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER ṬM

FEATUREture named “PowerTipText” that allows automatic “bubble” help toappear during a mouse hover.Just to be on the safe side, I selected the F1 key on my laptop insideof PocketBuilder and checked out the ShowPopupHelp ( ) and SetMicroHelp( ) commands. Guess what…“Not supported.” Okay…I knewthat! However, being a stubborn Great White North developer (youhave to be tough here in the Canadian winter), I set out to tackle thislimitation. One of the mechanisms I used to get there was the use ofthe database “system tables” that the PowerBuilder and PocketBuilderIDEs create and maintain for the developer.Still one of the great features of PowerBuilder and PocketBuilder istheir ability to use any RDBMS vendor’s database to store develop-Context-SensitiveHelpBuilding and integratingWRITTEN BY CHRIS POLLACHSummertime here in Canada’s “Great White North” is hot andhumid but I found myself attending Sybase’s TechWave 2005conference with punishing 105F (40.5C) degree heat.The Las Vegas heat must have gotten to me as I started a new PocketBuilderapplication and wanted to encompass some of the “contextsensitive” help features that I have previously used in a PowerBuilderapplication. I knew that this was not going to be easy, as the Pocket PCoperating system does not support the (Multiple Document Interface)behavior. As a result, neither the Micro-Help bar nor pop-up help (alsoknown as “bubble help”) are available as they would be in a standardPowerBuilder application. PowerBuilder developers also use a nice fea-16 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

ment data in the “system table” area (see Figure 1). The system tablearea is normally where you (or your DBA) place the database schemathat defines the metadata (information about your data). This area isalso available to the PowerBuilder and PocketBuilder developmenttools along with Sybase’s InfoMaker report writer. All these Sybasedevelopment tools make use of the system table area (would youbelieve designed and available since PowerBuilder release 1.0) tostore “metadata” about your database. The first developer who connectsto a new database area using InfoMaker, PocketBuilder, orPowerBuilder with DBA privileges (i.e., “Create Table”) has the developmenttool automatically add five new tables to the system tablearea. These five tables are PBCatCol, PBCatEdt, PBCatFmt, PBCatTbl,and PBCatVld. To view these new System Tables, open the databasepainter and connect to your favorite database, then select the“Tables” item in the TreeView of the database Painter and use the“alternate” (aka politically incorrect “right-hand”) mouse button toproduce a pop-up menu. From the pop-up menu, select the “ShowSystem Tables” option. Once selected, this will force InfoMaker, PocketBuilder,or PowerBuilder to show you all the system table area –notice the PBCatxxx tables in the list.The PBCatxxx tables are where the Sybase IDE tools store extensionsto the database schema tables and columns that pertain to thedeveloper’s delivery of information to the GUI user. The DBMS doesnot care about the GUI world and, in fact, it detaches itself from it. Inthe graphic environment, however, we are concerned about propertiessuch as font, height, units of measure, formatting, and validating. ThePBCatxxx tables supply this exact information to the Sybase developmenttools. It should be noted here that this applies only to databasedesigners who use tools like PowerDesigner or System Architect andknow how to also load this GUI information into the Sybase PBCatxxxtables. Another alternative, before any development team starts itsproject work, is to have one developer take the time to use the DatabasePainter to include this extra “metadata.” Doing so can improvethe development time of a project from 3 to 15 times.Assuming that your manager is too naive or cheap to purchase adesign/modeling tool like PowerDesigner, fear not, you can still use theInfoMaker, PocketBuilder, or PowerBuilder’s DataBase painter toachieve this tremendous productivity gain; as you will see shortly, thiswill tie into the need and delivery of the “Context Sensitive” help.Loading Your MetadataTo begin loading your PBCatxxx System Tables using the InfoMaker,PocketBuilder, or PowerBuilder database painter, open the databasepainter and carefully note the “extended” properties of either a “table”or a “column” entity. For a table, the extended property categories arein the General tab’s “Comments,” all of the Data Font, Heading Fontand Label Font tab pages (see Figure 2). For the column entity, theextended properties are “Comments” in the General Tab, all of theHeaders, Display, Validation, and Edit Style tab pages (see Figure 3).Any property that you fill out in the areas listed above are automaticallysaved to the PBCatTbl system table (for a table) and the PBCatColssystem table for any column properties that are beyond the vendor’sANSI implementation.I should also take the time to mention that the database painter isincluded in the current DataWindow.NET product and will be presentin the new DataWindow.NET plug-in for Visual Studio 2005. So the tipsI am referring to in this article focus mainly on the PowerBuilder andPocketBuilder development tools but will also work for this new environmentas well. The PBCatxxx tables are always present after the firstconnection to your Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft, IBM, or other DBMS. Ifthere are security implications for creating these five new systemtables, Sybase provides DBA scripts to populate these table structuresmanually by using your favorite DBA utility.The next three PBCatxxx tables are for Edit Styles, Validation Rules,and Display Formats (see Figure 4). These extended properties can beadded to the System Table area using the “Extended Attributes” panelof the database painter. This allows the developer to input theseextended properties, which I would imagine most seasoned Power-Builder developers would recognize also appears in the DataWindowpainter. Taking the time to add this metadata in the DBMS will allowthis extra information to be available to the DataWindow painter duringthe creation of the DataWindow object. Take note of this last statementas this also applies to the Table and Column extended propertiesas well.Remember though that the PBCatxxx system tables are just standardDBMS tables that can be read by your development tool. While inthe database painter, you can locate the ISQL pane and select informationfrom any of the PBCatxxx tables. For example, in the Employeetable – if I attach a “Display Format” of '$#,##0;($#,##0)' to the Salarycolumn, then, using the following query:SELECT "pbcatfmt"."pbf_frmt","pbcatcol"."pbc_cnam","pbcatcol"."pbc_tnam"FROM "pbcatcol","pbcatfmt"WHERE ( "pbcatfmt"."pbf_name" = "pbcatcol"."pbc_mask" );FIGURE 1 | FIGURE 2FIGURE 3FIGURE 4FIGURE 5we can see if there is a correlationbetween the Display Format andany column – in particular, theSalary column. Running theabove query resulted in the followingresult set in my development environment and indicated thatthe display format I just created was indeed connected to the salarycolumn within the Employee table.Using the above information and test we can also extend thisbehavior to the “Comments” part of the PBCatCols system table. Thereason I might be interested in this would be to automate the Help filegeneration. Then I could use the ShowPopUp ( ) command in Power-Builder to dynamically support this feature. An SQL query for thisinformation might look like this:pbdj.sys-con.comPBDJ volume12 issue1117

FIGURE 6 |FIGURE 8 |FIGURE 7 | FIGURE 9 |SELECT "pbcatcol"."pbc_cnam","pbcatcol"."pbc_cmnt"FROM "pbcatcol"WHERE "pbcatcol"."pbc_cmnt" is not NULL;The above query should return the column name and the column’scomment textual value as located in the PBCatCol table. For this test Iadded a comment to the Employee’s Sex column and the query aboveresulted in the ISQL result set shown in Figure 5.Help CompilationOnce you have taken the time to populate appropriate commentson the data elements within your data model (schema), the extendedproperties will also be loaded into your database’s system tables. Youcan use the technique I just described earlier to extract the columnname and the column’s comment text using the previous SQL example.To test this, I commented the “Contact” table’s columns and ran theSQL, which resulted in a two-column output in the ISQL pane of thedatabase painter. To export this information, I used the “alternate”mouse button (RHMB) and chose the “Save Rows As” option in theresulting pop-up menu. I then proceeded to save the result set as a tabdelimited text file. Using this format allows the developer to easilyinclude this key information into any help compiler.The favorite product that I use to generate help files is called “Docto-Help”from ComponentOne. I can utilize this tool to generate varioushelp file flavors for all my Web, PocketBuilder, and PowerBuilderprojects. I will briefly show you the highlights of this process. The firststep is to create a new project and import the tabbed delimited textoutput from the database painter as described above. The new projectwill generate an MS-Word document where you can import the text filewith the column name and description. At this point you must markthe column names as a procedural heading. In Doc-to-Help, you cando this by selecting each column name and setting each property to“Heading 4.” The type “Heading 4” sets the font, point size, and marksthe column name as “procedural” help (see Figure 6).Doc2Help will automatically generate Context IDs for any project.In the project painter of Doc-to-Help, select “topic types,” then thesub-type “procedural.” At this point you can select a property called“AutoContextID” and set this value to “True” (see Figure 7). This forcesthe Doc-to-Help Compiler in concert with the MS-Help compiler togenerate and incorporate “Context ID” numbers into your .HLP or.CHM file. From this point onward, the easy part can be enjoyed by thePowerBuilder developer who only has to use the ShowPopupHelp ( )command to activate this great MS-Windows feedback mechanism.Doc2Help has also generated a reference file for the PowerBuilder,VisualBasic, C#, Delphi, etc., programmer as to the topic names andtheir Context IDs, so now we have the direct mapping to the informationthat we need for the help or bubble help feature we want to use.In the test case above, I used the “Contact” table in the sample ASA9.0 database and the columns such as City, Fax, and First Name showup as well as their Context ID numbers (see Figure 8). When coding aSingleLineEdit, MultilineEdit, DataWindow, or other type of control inPowerBuilder, you are provided with a “Help” event (present sincePowerBuilder version 8.0). The Help event is automatically triggeredwhen the application user has focus on the control and presses the“shift+F1” key. Also, in a response dialog, you use the “ContextHelp”property (set to True) to have the O/S generate a “?” on the window’stitle bar. Dragging the window “?” on to any control also fires the Helpevent during the drop operation.For the Help event, use the ShowPopupHelp ( ) command. If I wantedto provide Context help to the command button, for example, called“City,” my Help event would use the code: ShowPopupHelp ("CON-TEXT.HLP", THIS, 63) – which would result in Figure 9.To make this more reusable, I typically use the “Tag” property orcreate an ancestor class that adds a protected instance variable (suchas il_context_id”) where I can store the Context ID mapping that I getfrom the help compiler. You would never want to hard-code this valueas it can change as new information is added to the help file. I wouldeven take this further for pure object-oriented reusability and create aservice that would dynamically read the “mapping file” and return theContext ID based on a component name.DataWindow ColumnsFor DataWindow columns, the process has to be slightly different aswe have to consider two objects – the DataWindow control and theDataWindow object – that when combined create the “dynamic duo”that all PowerBuilder developers have come to know and love (evenVisual Studio developers now with DataWindow.NET). When the Helpevent is fired, the operating system message is actually sent to theDataWindow control but it only contains the X and Y position of theContext Help request. What the developer needs to do at this point isdetermine the column name. Luckily, we can use the “GetColumn-Name” method to return the column, which has focus in the DataWindowobject. Once we have that information, you could use the techniqueof storing the Context ID in the “tag” property.Once you have the column name and its Context ID, the ShowPopupHelp( ) method should do nicely here. However, the DataWindowcontrol does not activate the “Help” event and we need to acquire theinformation about the column that has focus (which is an object insidethe DataWindow object, which is inside the DataWindow Control, i.e.,nested scenario). Remember, the GUI standard for requesting Help isShift+F1, but if you try this on the DataWindow Control, the Help eventwill not fire. This seems to have been an oversight in PowerBuildersince release 8.0.We can easily simulate the Help request though by adding a userevent to the DataWindow control. In this case, we need to map a newuser event to the “pbm_dwkey” Event ID. This will allow you to receivenotifications from the keyboard. Once this event is mapped, we can18PBDJ volume12 issue11www.SYS-CON.COM/pbdj/

use the KeyDown ( ) method in PowerBuilder to determine the exactkeys pressed. Once we have determined that context help is required,we can easily fire the real Help event. The code for the “key” user eventon the DataWindow Control should be:IF KeyDown ( KeyShift!) = TRUE THENIF KeyDown ( KeyF1!) = TRUE THENTHIS.POST Event Help (0,0)END IFEND IFAs you can see from the above code, the real Help Event is activatedon a Shift+F1. Since we don’t know the object that has focus, you canpass the value “0,0” as the arguments.In the real DataWindow control’s Help event, we can use the “0,0”arguments to determine that the “Key” User Event has probably beenthe trigger of how we arrived here in this code segment. The next stepwould be to get the column name and then its tag property where youmay have stored the Context ID. The code for the DataWindow Helpevent might be as follows:Stringls_objectLong ll_idls_object = THIS.GetColumnname ( )ll_id = Long (THIS.Describe(ls_object +".Tag"))ShowPopUpHelp ("CONTEXT.hlp", THIS, ll_id )In the above code segment, the DataWindow control interrogatesthe DataWindow object for the column name that the user is focusedon. Once it has the name, you can use the Describe ( ) method toacquire the “tag” property setting. Converting the Tag property to aContext ID number to forward into the ShowPopUpHelp ( ) methodcompletes the requirements and the real columns’ context help shouldPocketPCGetting back to the original PocketBuilder context-sensitive helpissue I started describing at the beginning of this article – since we cannotuse the nice features from the PowerBuilder world that I outlinedearlier in this article, how could I implement a robust feedback mechanismto the Pocket PC user? One of my first thoughts was to extend mySoftware Tool & Die Inc. (STD) Foundation Classes (FC) to emulate astandard MicroHelp bar on an MDI type of window class. As it turnsout, the “Controller” window class in the system STD framework isemulating an MDI behavior. All I would have to do is extend its featuresto include such a feature.In the real old days of PowerBuilder (i.e., releases 1 and 2), we didnot have an MDI window as the version of MS Windows that Power-Builder supported at that time did not yet have the MDI feature. So creativedevelopers used User Objects to design such an object class andallow this to be used, like an early version of the MDI MicroHelp bar. Idecided that the STD FCs could easily implement this feature and createda “vc_status_bar” object class. This object has one public method(of_Set_StatusBar) that allows external routines to send the object themessage text to be displayed (see Figure 11). The user object is alsoattached to the “abstract” level MDI Controller window class (wn_Controller_Master).The Base class window was enhanced to include an“of_Set_StatusBar” method, which allows the redirection of the displaytext to the user object. In the Controller window class, this function isextended to work with the user object. In all other windows classes, themethod ignores the request, as the Status Bar user object is not present.The latest version of the STD FCs for PocketBuilder 2.0.3 includesthe retrofit described above. Also, the sample Order Entry applicationfor version 2.0.3 of PocketBuilder now includes the demonstration ofthe use of the MicroHelp feature (see Figure 12). The FCs and sampleapplication have been uploaded to Sybase’s CodeXchange Web site. Inthe sample Order Entry application, the Controller dialog allows theuser to access functionality from the command buttons within aDataWindow. The DataWindow command buttons have context-sensitivehelp attached to their “tag” property. To display this information atruntime, code was placed on the “ButtonClicking” event of theDataWindow control. What is nice about this event is that a pointer tothe current control object is passed to the PowerScript code (namedDWO), which allows the developer to introspect the subordinate object’sproperties. Adding the inclusional polymorphic function, the contextinformation can be easily displayed with a simple statement such as:THIS.of_set_statusBar (DWO.Tag).FIGURE 10 |FIGURE 11 |FIGURE 12 |appear (see Figure 10). To make this design even more dynamicallyconfigurable, I would suggest writing a PowerBuilder utility programthat reads the Context Map from the latest help file build – loading thisinformation into a database table. Then, the Context ID can be ascertainedby reading the database table at runtime. That way, if yourebuild the help file and resequence all the Context IDs, you can simplyreload the database table with the current mapping information. Thiswill avoid a lot of work updating all the column “tag” properties,recompiling, and redistributing the application and help file(s).Bubble Help (PowerTipText)This feature would be great for context-sensitive help but neitherthe ShowPopUpHelp ( ) method or the PowerTipText feature is supportedby the Pocket PC operating system (and hence PocketBuilder).To offset this deficiency, I thought about the notification bubble featureof the Pocket PC. The more I thought about it, the more I realized thatthis was an excellent vehicle to deliver context-sensitive help as thefeature uses dynamic space, is always over top of the active window,and can be programmed to accept different responses. Since Pocket-Builder 2.0 the STD FCs have been upgraded to deliver this featureusing the “of_set_nb_message” method of the base window class.The ancestor code of the “of_set_nb_message” method instantiatesa user object class of type “ns_notification_bubble_master” that allowscommunication to the Pocket PC operating system for the use of thisfeature. One of the problems I had encountered in the past using thisfeature was when the issuing window did not close the notificationbubble. This left the notification bubble in “limbo” and the user wasnot able to remove the notification until the application fully closed. Toget around this problem, the STD FCs were enhanced to always add anOK command button to the notification bubble. By doing so, I foundthat the user could also reactivate the notification bubble at any timeand respond to the “OK.” If the window instance that originally openedthe notification bubble was closed, the Pocket PC operating wouldclean up the notification bubble. This was a great discovery.By adding a command button feature though, the notification bub-20 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

extended at the base Window class with an “oe_command” user eventto allow the capture of the communicae from the notification bubbleto the issuing window instance. This allowed a full communication circlefrom the Window instance to the notification bubble instance andback again. If we now couple the automatic population of the Tagproperty from the comment text in the ASA database with the STD FCs’easy use of the notification bubble feature, the context sensitive helpwas an easy reach. The only question was how to initiate the helprequest, as the Pocket PC does not support any function keys or the useof the context-help question mark on response dialogs.To help with the context-help initiation, the STD FCs were extendedat the base PopUp menu class level to include a “Help” menu item.This can be easily activated by the Pocket PC stylus with a “Tap andhold” action. The popup menu understands the control that instantiatedit and the help menu redirects a “oe_help” user event back to thecontrol. The GUI control in turn can extract the control’s tag properties(or the DataWindow object’s current column’s tag) and redirect a notificationbubble request to the parent window. Ancestor code in the basewindow class takes care of the notification bubble instantiation andHTML message text wrapping. In the STD FCs, the only action requiredby the Pocket PC developer to allow this behavior is to set the“ib_help_required” property of any control to TRUE. This makes thehelp menu item appear on the pop-up and the notification bubblecontext help feature enabled at runtime. The developer can set thisproperty in the Window painter or at runtime under script control. ▼FIGURE 13 |ble is also able to communicate to its issuing window class (see Figure13). To accomplish this, the notification bubble sends a “pbm_command”message to the instantiating window class. The STD FCs wereAUTHOR BIOChris Pollach is the president of Software Tool & Die Inc. (a consulting company based in Ottawa,Ontario, Canada) and has been using PB since November 1989 (version 0.8). When not developing in PB,Chris enjoys fishing and martial arts.cpollach@travel-net.comPBDJ ADVERTISER INDEXADVERTISER URL PHONE PAGEActive Endpoints, Inc. www.active-endpoints.com 203-929-9400 2Amyuni Technologies www.amyuni.com 866-926-9864 21ClearNova www.clearnova.com/thinkcap 770-442-8324 19E.crane www.ecrane.com 603-226-4041 36iAnywhere www.ianywhere.com 800-801-2069 35ISSJ www.ISSJournal.com 888-303-5282 27Sybase www.sybase.com/pocketbuilder 877-230-6771 7Sybase www.sybase.com/pbextension 877-230-6771 11Sybase www.sybase.com/powerbuilder 877-230-6771 5, 13Sybase www.sybase.com/datawindow.net 800-8-SYBASE 9Sybase www.datawindow.com 800-667-9936 15SYS-CON reprints www.sys-con.com 201-802-3026 17SYS-CON Website www.sys-con.com 201-802-3000 25Web Services Edge/Open Source www2.sys-con.com/events 201-802-3066 23Advertiser is fully responsible for all financial liability and terms of the contract executedby their agents or agencies who are acting on behalf of the advertiser. This index isprovided as an additional service to our readers. The publisher does not assumeany liability for errors or omissions.22 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

TMTMENGAGE AND EXPLORE...The Technologies, Solutions and Applications thatare Driving Today’s Initiatives and Strategies...CALL FOR PAPERS NOW OPEN!CALL FOR PAPERS NOW OPEN!June 2006 | New York, NYThe Sixth Annual SOA Web Services Edge 2006 East - International Web ServicesConference & Expo, to be held June 2006, announces that its Callfor Papers is now open. Topics include all aspects of Web services andService-Oriented ArchitectureSuggested topics...> Transitioning Successfully to SOA> Federated Web services> ebXML> Orchestration> Discovery> The Business Case for SOA> Interop & Standards> Web Services Management> Messaging Buses and SOA> Enterprise Service Buses> SOBAs (Service-Oriented Business Apps)> Delivering ROI with SOA> Java Web Services> XML Web Services> Security> Professional Open Source> Systems Integration> Sarbanes-Oxley> Grid Computing> Business Process Management> Web Services ChoreographyThe fi rst annual Enterprise Open Source Conference & Expo announces thatits Call for Papers is now open. Topics include all aspects of Open Sourcetechnology. The Enterprise Open Source Conference & Expo is a softwaredevelopment and management conference addressing the emerging technologies,tools and strategies surrounding the development of open source software.We invite you to submit a proposal to present in the following topics. Casestudies, tools, best practices, development, security, deployment, performance,challenges, application management, strategies and integration.Suggested topics...June 2006 | New York, NY> Open Source Licenses> Open Source & E-Mail> Databases> ROI Case Studies> Open Source ERP & CRM> Open-Source SIP> Testing> LAMP Technologies> Open Source on the Desktop> Open Source & Sarbanes-Oxley> IP ManagementSubmit Your Topic Today! www2.sys-con.com/eventsSponsored by*Call for Papers email: jimh@sys-con.comFor Exhibit and Sponsorship InformationCall 201 802-3066Attention Exhibitors:An Exhibit-Forum will displayleading Web services andOpenSource products,services, and solutionsProduced by© 2005 WEB SERVICES EDGE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PBNIWRITTEN BYDAVID HUOCalling PowerBuilderNVOs in C#PBNI answers the callHow can we reuse Power-Builder NVOs in .NET applications?Before PowerBuilder9.0, the answer was Power-Builder automation or a three-tiersolution.In the latter case that meant hostingall the NVOs in EAServer as middle-tiercomponents. Beginning with version 9,PowerBuilder offers a new interface tointeract with the PowerBuilder VM – thePowerBuilder Native Interface (PBNI).In this article I will explain how to usePBNI in unmanaged C++ code and marshalthe parameters to C# managedcode so that you can invoke Power-Builder NVOs from C#.FIGURE 1 |Java-based applications can use JNIto invoke PowerBuilder via PBNI.• Many PowerBuilder built-in featurescan be moved to PowerBuilder extensionsso that the PowerBuilder corecan be very small and the deploymentsize can vary depending onwhich features the user needs.using the PowerBuilder librarypainter. Right-click the method in theNVO and select “Properties”. The signaturestring is shown in the “Signature”text field (see Figure 2). Anotherway to do it is using pbsig100.exe,which is a command-line toolshipped with PBNI SDK:AUTHOR BIODavid Huo works forthe Sybase Waterlooconsultant team.Introducing PBNI (Power-Builder Native Interface)PBNI is a new feature introducedwith PowerBuilder 9.0. It is only availablein the enterprise versions and isinstalled under %PowerBuilderinstall%\ SDK\PBNI. You can find allthe required header files to use PBNIunder the include directory.PBNI is a standard programminginterface that enables developers toextend the functionality of PowerBuilder.Using PBNI, you can create visual andnonvisual extensions to PowerBuilder(including marshaler extensions) andalso embed the PowerBuilder virtualmachine (PBVM) into C++ applications.Compared with PowerBuilder automation,PBNI has many advantages:• It is not just reusing existing NVOs.PowerBuilder can be extended usingPBNI to provide capabilities such asXML parsing and Web service integration.• The solution is not COM-based,therefore no registry settings arerequired and it can be deployed tonon-Windows platforms.• More languages can reuse Power-Builder components; for example,How It WorksPBNI provides predefined C++ interfacesto allow the PBVM interact to withother languages (see Figure 1). Table 1describes some important interfaces.Calling PowerBuilder NVOfrom Unmanaged CodeTo invoke a PowerBuilder NVO usingPBNI, you need to follow these steps:1. Identify the required PowerBuilderlibrary files and the method signaturestring in the NVO. This can be donepbsig100 .Here is a sample output ofpbsig100.exe showing the methods’signature strings of NVO n_automation:PB Object Name: automationPB Object Name: n_automationpublic function string fn_barcode(string specimenid, stringInterfaceDescriptionsIPB_VMUsed to load PowerBuilder objects in third-party applications andinteroperate with the PowerBuilder virtual machine (PBVM).IPB_Session interface An abstract interface that defines methods for performing variousactions such as accessing PowerScript data, creating PowerBuilderobjects, and calling PowerScript functions.IPB_ValueRepresents a PowerBuilder value, which could be one of the Power-Builder standard datatypes such as integer, long, string, and so forth.It provides information about each variable, including its type, nullflag, access privileges, array or simple type, and reference type.IPB_Arguments Represents the arguments passed to a PowerScript function andused to access the data.PBCallInfo (structure) Used to hold data and return type information for calls betweenextensions and the PBVM.TABLE 1 |24 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

2. GetAt obtains the value at a specificindex of the pArgs member of thePBCallInfo structure. For each argument,GetAt returns a pointer to theIPB_Value interface.FIGURE 2 |specimen_formatted)/* SSS */public subroutine fn_workdraft(string connstr, stringspecimenid)/* QSS */PBNI uses the NVO’s name, methodname, and the signature string tofind the method to call.2. Call LoadLibrary() to load the PBVMDLL. In version 10, the PBVM DLL iscalled pbvm100.dll.3. Use GetProcAddress() to get theaddress of the “PB_GetVM” methodand then call the PB_GetVM() methodto get a reference to the PBVM.4. Call CreateSession() to create aIPB_Session instance. You can storethe IPB_Session reference in a classmember or a global variable to reusethe session. Because creating thesession is a heavy process, it shouldbe done only once.5. Call the FindGroup() method of theIPB_Session instance to find theNVO group. The group name shouldbe the same as the NVO’s name.6. Call the FindClass() method of theIPB_Session instance with the groupID and class name. The class nameshould be the NVO’s name. You mayfeel confused here; what is the pointof the group definition? It makesmore sense when you try to find awindow and controls in the pbl. Forexample, in a window definition w_1,w_1 is a group, and w_1 and the controlscontained in it are all classes ofgroup w_1.7. Call the NewObject() method of theIPB_Session instance to create aninstance of the class returned byFindClass().8. Call the GetMethodID() method ofthe IPB_Session instance to get a referenceof the method you want tocall. Please make sure to give thecorrect function name and signaturestring – (see step 1)9. Call the InitCallInfo() method of theIPB_Session instance to initialize aPBCallInfo structure.10. Fill in the parameters and callInvokeObjectFunction() to invokethe method.11. Retrieve the return value using thePBCallInfo structure.12. Release the PBCallInfo reference.13. Release the IPB_Session instanceand call FreeLibrary() to unload thePBVM DLL. This step should bedone in the destructor of the class orat the moment when you are donewith PBNI calls.“PBNI enablesdevelopers toextend thefunctionality ofPowerBuilder”It sounds like a lot steps, but it ismuch easier when you see the samplecode in Listing 1. In the following example,the PBNI calls are wrapped in a C++class called CPBInvoker. The DLL loadingand IPB_Session initialization aredone in the constructor and the cleanup is done in the destructor of the class.For the sample, the method we want tocall is in an NVO named n_automationand the method name is fn_barcodewith a method signature string of “SSS”,meaning it returns a string and takestwo string type parameters.How to Pass ParametersPBCallInfo is the structure to passparameters and the return value in/outof the method. The structure contains apointer pArgs to the IPB_Argumentsinterface that has two methods:1. GetCount obtains the number ofarguments in a method call.The IPB_Value interface has a correspondingmethod to set the value fordifferent data types, for example, Set-String sets the string value and SetIntsets the int value and so on.It’s a little tricky to get the returnvalue. If the method returns a simpletype, such as int, you can use PBCall-Info returnValue->GetInt() to retrievethe value. If the return value requires amemory block, such as a string, youmust do this:pbstring ret = ci.returnValue->GetString();// str has the string value you wantLPCTSTR str = _session->GetString(ret) );If you return ci.returnValue->Get-String() value directly, you will get awrong value. Unfortunately, the exampleincluded with the SDK only showshow to return an integer, which is differentthan returning a string.Please remember all the values aregone after you call FreeCallInfo. If youwant to keep the return value, you needto use a method called AcquireValue inthe IPB_Session interface to tell PBNI tomake a copy of the memory and don’trelease the pointer after FreeCallInfo iscalled. The following data types, pluspbarray datatype, require theAcquireValue call to save the pointer.pbvalue_decpbvalue_stringpbvalue_blobpbvalue_datepbvalue_timepbvalue_datetimeThe following is an example of howto use AcquireValue:// Acquire a value, ci is thePBCallInfo structure, session isIPB_SessionMessageArg = session->AcquireValue( ci->pArgs->GetAt(0) );pbstring pbMessage = MessageArg->GetString() ;Message = (LPSTR)session->GetString(pbMessage) ;…session->FreeCallInfo( ci );// the value is still availableafter you call FreeCallInfo26PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

Cleanup phase, don’t forgetrelease the value// when is not needed any moreif (MessageArg) {session->ReleaseValue( MessageArg ) ;}Calling the PowerBuilder NVOfrom .NET Managed CodeNow we know how to call PBNI inC++ unmanaged code. The next step isto export the methods from the C++DLL and declare proper C# prototypesto make it available for C#. The__declspec(dllexport) modifier tells thecompiler to make the function visible(export) to other applications, so thatother applications can call this method.Listing 2 exports the PBInvoker class asDLL functions.Note: To check if the methods areproperly exported, you can use dumpbin.exeto see if the function names arein the list; here is an example of theoutput of dumpbin.exe showing theexported symbols:dumpbin /exports PBInvoker.dll1 0 000115B4 _PBX_GetVersion@02 1 0001162C barcode4 3 000115FF closePBSession5 4 000116BD initPBSessionParameter Marshaling from.NET to Unmanaged CodeThe .NET Framework uses managedcode, which is an interpreted instructionset, similar to Java bytecode orPowerBuilder P-Code. The C++ DLL usesunmanaged code, which is machinecode. This introduces an issue becausethe data types in the .NET Frameworkneed to be marshaled (meaning convertbetween the C/C++ data type formatand the .NET data type format) to passback and forth between managed andunmanaged code. C# provides themeans to do this job.In this example, we need to callthree C++ DLL methods in C#:void initPBSession(LPCTSTR libList[],int libNum, LPCTSTR appName);void closePBSession();void barcode(LPCTSTR specimen_formatted, LPCTSTR spcimen_id,char *code);First, we need to tell C# that thesethree methods are from an unmanagedDLL. This is done by using the[DllImport] attribute tag in the functionprototype in C#. Also don’t forget to use“PBNI offers a goodsolution to reusePowerBuildercomponents in the.NET Framework”the “extern” keyword, meaning thefunction exists outside the C# module:// pbinvoker.dll is the DLL file name[DllImport("pbinvoker.dll",CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]public static extern void closePBSession();Second, we need to use the proper[MarshalAs] attribute options to definethe marshal behaviors for LPCSTR[],int, LPCSTR, and char* unmanaged C++parameters. The following code showshow to define the marshal behaviors forthose three DLL methods:[DllImport("pbinvoker.dll",CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]public static extern voidinitPBSession([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType=UnmanagedType.LPStr)]string[]libList,int libNum,[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]string appName);[DllImport("pbinvoker.dll",CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]public static extern void closePBSession();[DllImport("pbinvoker.dll",CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]public static extern void barcode([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]stringspecimen_formatted,[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]stringspcimen_id,// Use C# StringBuilder for outputstring buffer[MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]StringBuilder code);There are some interesting things Ineed to point out:1. [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray,ArraySubType=Unmanaged-Type.LPStr)] is the way to marshalLPCTSTR[]. It tells C# the array typeand element type in C++, which is apointer array and a C string pointerin each element in our case.2. [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)]StringBuilder is the way to marshalan output string buffer. The String-Builder should have enough space tohold the return value from the DLLmethod; you can allocate the spacefor the StringBuilder and then call theDLL method in C#.Here is the C# code to invoke theDLL methods:// allocate buffer for the outputstringStringBuilder buf = new String-Builder(256);// Init PBInvoker, automation is thePowerBuilder application object nameinitPBSession(new String[] {"automation.pbl"},1, "automation");// Call the methodbarcode("C05-10", "tpro402137", buf);Console.Out.WriteLine("sb = {0}", buf);// Clean upclosePBSession();Creating a GenericPowerBuilder Invoker for C#We have discussed some basic techniquesfor using PowerBuilder NVOs inC#. One interesting idea is to create atool to generate both the C++ proxyDLL and C# prototypes based on theselected NVOs and methods. To generatethese proxy files, all we need is a listof NVOs in the PBL and prototypes ofeach method. Fortunately, pbsig100.exedoes it for us. We can parse the outputof pbsig100.exe to retrieve the metadataof any PBL file. The rest of the work is togenerate the source code based on theprototypes, which is fairly easy to do. I’llcover the details of the code generationin a follow-up article.ConclusionPBNI is a great innovation in Power-Builder. It opens a brand new space fordevelopers to reuse and extend Power-Builder. PBNI offers a good solution toreuse PowerBuilder components in the.NET Framework.To find more information aboutPBNI, please reference the PBNI SDKdocument and CodeXchange for examples.▼david.huo@sybase.com28 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

Listing 1// Define the function pointer for PB_GetVMtypedef PBXEXPORT PBXRESULT (*P_PB_GetVM)(IPB_VM** vm);// constructorCPBInvoker::CPBInvoker(LPCTSTR LibList[], int libNum, LPCT-STR appName){_hinst = NULL; // a member variable to hold the DLL handleIPB_VM* pbvm;_hinst = LoadLibrary("pbvm100.dll"); // step2: load PBVMif ( _hinst == NULL ) {throw "Loaded PBVM successfully";}// step 3: Get PBVM referenceP_PB_GetVM getvm =(P_PB_GetVM)GetProcAddress(_hinst,"PB_GetVM");if (getvm == NULL) {throw "PB_GetVM failed";}getvm(&pbvm);if (pbvm == NULL) {throw "getvm failed";}// step 4: Create IPB_Session instance, LibList is anarray holds the pbl file namesif ( pbvm->CreateSession(appName, LibList, libNum, &_session)!= PBX_OK ) {throw "Error in CreateSession";}}// destructorCPBInvoker::~CPBInvoker(){// step 13: Release IPB_Sessionif( NULL != _session ) {_session->Release();}// unload PBVM DLLif( NULL != _hinst ) {FreeLibrary(_hinst);}}// Call the NVO methodvoid CPBInvoker::barcode(LPCTSTR text, LPCTSTR format,char* code){// step 5: Find the group, n_automation is the NVO’snamepbgroup group = _session->FindGroup("n_automation",pbgroup_userobject);if (group == NULL) throw "n_automation is not found!";// step 6: Find the class, n_automation is the NVO’snamepbclass cls = _session->FindClass(group,"n_automation");if (cls == NULL) throw "n_automation class notfound!";objectpbobject pbobj = _session->NewObject(cls);// PBCallInfo contains arguments and return valuePBCallInfo ci;// step 8: GetMethodID to get the method. “SSS” is thesignature string, fn_barcode is// the function namepbmethodID mid = _session->GetMethodID(cls, "fn_barcode",PBRT_FUNCTION, "SSS");// step 9: Initialize call info structure based onmethod ID_session->InitCallInfo(cls, mid, &ci);// step 10: Fill in parameters.ci.pArgs-> GetAt(0)->SetString(text);ci.pArgs-> GetAt(1)->SetString(format);// step 11: invoke the method_session->InvokeObjectFunction(pbobj, mid, &ci);// step 12: Retrieve the return value, code is a validmemory// buffer passed in by the callerpbstring ret = ci.returnValue->GetString();strcpy( code, _session->GetString(ret) );}// step 13: Release the PBCallInfo structure_session->FreeCallInfo( &ci );Listing 2#define PBINVOKER_API __declspec(dllexport)PBINVOKER_API void barcode(LPCTSTR specimen_formatted,LPCTSTR spcimen_id, char *code){// _invoker is a global variable holds the reference ofthe PBInvoker objectif( NULL != _invoker ) {// call the NVO method_invoker->barcode(specimen_formatted, spcimen_id, code);}}PBINVOKER_API void initPBSession(LPCTSTR libList[], intlibNum, LPCTSTR appName){// init the IPB_Sessionif( NULL == _invoker ) {// instantiate the CPBInvoker wrapper class_invoker = new CPBInvoker(libList, libNum, appName);}}PBINVOKER_API void closePBSession(){// clean upif( NULL != _invoker ) {// delete the wrapper objectdelete _invoker;_invoker = NULL;}}// step 7: Create an instance of the PowerBuilderpbdj.sys-con.comPBDJ volume12 issue1129

TECHNIQUESWRITTEN BYDOUG PORTERWorking with Web Servicesin PowerBuilderAn introductionAUTHOR BIODoug Porter is a softwaredeveloper withDailyAccess Corporation.He is a Sun CertifiedJava Programmerand Certified Power-Builder Professional andwas a speaker at Tech-Wave 2004. He holds aBA in Spanish and anMS in CIS from the Universityof South Alabamawhere he has alsoworked as an adjunctinstructor. Doug worksextensively withEAServer, PowerBuilder,and Java developingclient/server and Webapplications for thefinancial industry.Unless you have been hiding ina cave for the past couple ofyears, you are probably wellaware of the buzz surroundingservice-oriented architecture(SOA). This concept of interactionamong loosely coupled collections ofcomponents is often implementedthrough a series of services accessibleover HTTP that processes requests andresponses (Web services). As a Power-Builder developer you may be wonderinghow you can join the SOA partywhile still leveraging your existingskills. This article will walk youthrough three techniques available tothe PowerBuilder developer (even ifyou may not be on a currently supportedversion).Accessing a Web service is very similarto visiting a Web page containingparameters in the URL or submitting aform on a Web page. An HTTP requestgets sent to a URL via an HTTP GET orPOST along with a set of arguments inthe form of name/value pairs. In Power-Builder there are three options availablefor performing this type of operation:the GetURL/PostURL functions, usingMicrosoft’s XmlHttp object via OLE, andusing the Web Service Proxy object.FIGURE 1 | FIGURE 2 |Demonstration Application toCall Amazon.com Web ServicesIn this article we will create a demonstrationapplication that interacts withthe Amazon.com E-Commerce WebService (http://aws.amazon.com). Ourapplication will use this service tosearch through one of their productindexes for items matching our searchcriteria. To use the Amazon.com Webservice you will need to sign up for anaccess key through their site. The codesamples will show where your keyshould be placed with the indicator“[YourAccessKey]”.By looking at the documentation forthe Amazon E-commerce Web service,we can see that to perform an itemsearch operation a minimal set of argumentsis required. There are many additionalarguments that may be used whenperforming searches, but we will beusing the subset listed below. (Browsethe Amazon.com Web service documentationto see the full range of searcharguments and operations available.)• Web Service URL: http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml• Service: Name of the service beingused; should be AWSECommerceService• AWSAccessKeyID: [YourAccessKey]• Operation: Operation to be performed(ItemSearch in our case)• Keywords: Word or phrase to searchfor• SearchIndex: One of Amazon.com’ssearch indexes (Music, Books, etc.)Responses from this Amazon Webservice will be returned as structuredXML that can then be parsed and displayed.A demonstration of the variousmethods available for parsing XML inPowerBuilder will be covered in a laterarticle.Before we can send requests, wemust decide what to search for. I’m ahuge music fan, so for this example wewill use the “Music” SearchIndex andfor our Keywords argument we willsearch for information on one of myfavorite musicians, the great “ButchWalker” (an Atlanta musician formerlywith the Marvelous 3).GetURL/PostURLThe oldest methods for pulling dataover HTTP in PowerBuilder (since version6.5) are the GetURL and PostURLfunctions. These functions allow you tosend an HTTP GET or POST request30 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

from within PowerScript and capturethe resulting response.When passing arguments to a URLvia an HTTP GET, the URL is generatedin the format:BaseURL?=&=&...The full URL for an HTTP GET to ourAmazon Web services with our selectedparameters would be as follows:http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService&AWSAccessKeyID=[YourAccessKey]&Operation=ItemSearch&SearchIndex=Music&Keywords=Butch WalkerThe resulting response would beXML containing a list of items matchingour search (see Figure 1).Now that we know what our requestshould look like, we can begin to writecode to call the Web service. Both theGetURL and PostURL functionsrequire that you first create a standardclass of the type InternetResult to captureand process the Web serviceresponse via the InternetData(blob)function. Once we have created thisclass, we will override the InternetData(blob)function with code to processthe response. For demonstration purposes,a simple MessageBox will do fornow, but we could write the data out toa file or parse it for display in aSOAP vs RESTSOAP: A well-defined protocol forexchanging XML-based messages over anetwork usually via HTTP. Oftentimes it’sused in an RPC (Remote Procedure Call)messaging pattern.REST: In the context of Web services,describes loosely structured requests overHTTP with no set standard defining thestructure of requests or responses fromthe service.DifferencesAccessing a REST-style Web serviceinvolves passing multiple arguments inthe form of name/value pairs via a GETor POST request. These arguments provideall of the incoming parameters theWeb service may need to create aresponse (which may or may not beXML). In contrast, a SOAP-style Web serviceaccepts a single incoming argumentthat consists of well-formed XML. ThisXML argument holds all of the necessaryparameters the Web services requires tocreate a response (which is then returnedas well-formed XML).pbdj.sys-con.comGetURL/PostURL MS XmlHttp Web Service ProxyMinimum PB Version 6.5 6.5 9Supports HTTPS No Yes YesREST Requests Yes Yes NoSOAP Requests Yes Yes YesXML Parsing Standard String MS XmlDom PBDom orParsing object DataWindowManually Create Request Yes Yes NoTABLE 1 |DataWindow. The following code snippetshould be added to the functionInternetData(blob) in the InternetResultobject:MessageBox(“Response”, &String(data))Return 1The code in Listing 1 demonstrates acall to the service with GetURL (seeListing 1). Note that to call theGetURL/PostURL functions, you mustuse GetContextService to get a servicereference to the Internet service.Executing the snippet should generatea MessageBox filled with our XMLresponse from the Amazon Web service.Performing the same operation with aPostURL is almost identical; we just haveto set a couple of extra parameters (contentheaders and port) (see Listing 2).While this approach works well forstandard HTTP requests, theGetURL/PostURL functions do notallow communication over HTTPS. Toachieve secure communication with theWeb service, we must move on to one ofour other two methods.Microsoft XmlHttp ObjectUsing OLEUsing PowerBuilder’s OLE capabilities,we can take advantage ofMicrosoft’s XmlHttp object to sendrequests to a Web service. The code touse this object is very similar to whatwe have seen for GetURL/PostURL. TheXmlHttp object can send requests viaHTTP GET and POST but adds the benefitof being able to also send requestsover HTTPS. Before you may use thisobject, you must download and installthe MSXML package from Microsoft’sWeb site (this example uses version 4.0of the package). One nice added bonusincluded with this package is an XMLparser (handy if you don’t happen to beon a version of PowerBuilder that canparse XML) (see Listing 3).Web Service Proxy ObjectLast but not least is the Web ServiceProxy Object. This object is available tothose who are using PowerBuilder version9 and above. This object examinesa Web service’s WSDL (Web ServiceDescription Language) file to determineall of the services available that may berequested. We will step through the WebService Proxy Wizard to create a proxyobject for our Amazon Web Service. Wecan then deploy this object, which willgenerate a set of objects, methods, andstructures we can use to call our Webservice and capture the response(because of recent changes in the AmazonWSDL file, PowerBuilder 9.0.3 Build8565 or above is required to generate aproxy using the wizard). The Web ServiceProxy uses SOAP-style requests tointeract with our Web service. The othertwo methods shown used REST-stylerequests (for more information see thesidebar SOAP vs REST).To create a Web Service Proxy Object,proceed through the following steps:1. Click New object and select the WebService Proxy Wizard from the Projecttab (see Figure 2).2. Click Next and select a WSDL File.Enter the URL to the Amazon WSDLfile: http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2005-10-05/AWSECommerceService.wsdl.3. Click Next and select the available servicesexposed through the WSDL file.4. Click Next and select an availableport for the Web service.5. Click Next and, if you like, enter aprefix for the proxy name.FIGURE 3 |PBDJ volume12 issue1131

SOA != Web ServicesSOA (Service-Oriented Architecture):An architectural concept involving thecreation of loosely coupled servicesaccessible over a network in a standardizedfashion. Normally the consumptionof a service is not restricted to a specificlanguage or platform.Web Service: A service made accessiblevia the Internet or an intranet. It typicallyuses HTTP as the transport protocolwith requests to and responses from theservice implemented using SOAP messagesor a REST approach.ComparisonA service-oriented architecture may beimplemented using Web services as themethod of exposing and accessing theservices, but this is not the only way toachieve SOA. Other possible implementationscould involve messaging systems(JMS: Java Messaging Service), CORBAcommunicating over IIOP, or any othermessaging protocol (STOMP: StreamingText Orientated Messaging Protocol,XMPP: Extensible Messaging and PresenceProtocol).6. Click Next and select a library andname for the proxy object. Click Nextand confirm the proxy settings andclick Finish (see Figure 3).Now you should have a proxy objectpresent in your library that can bedeployed to create all of the objectsneeded to access the Amazon Web service.To use the new objects, you willneed to create a SoapClient connection(to use the SoapClient object you willneed to add either pbsoapclient90.pbd(PowerBuilder 9) or pbsoapclient100.pbd(PowerBuilder 10) to your library list).If you examine the awseCommerce-ServicePort object, you will see it has anItemSearch function that takes variousarguments. We can call this function tosend a request to our Web service andcapture the response.This is very similar to how you wouldmake a call to a remote object usingCORBA from within PowerBuilder (seeListing 4).ComparisonWe have covered three techniques formaking requests against a Web service.There are various pros and cons for themethods demonstrated. Table 1 summarizesthe differences among theseoptions.ConclusionThe three methods presented heredemonstrate the options available to thePowerBuilder developer with regard toWeb services in the new SOA paradigm(for more information on SOA and Webservices, see the sidebar SOA != Web Services).Those of you on older versionscan use the GetURL/PostURL functionsand the XmlHttp object, while the developerson supported versions can takeadvantage of the new Web Service Proxyobject. The Web Service Proxy does afantastic job of abstracting away Webservices to the level of distributedmethod calls. This alone is worth theprice of an upgrade if you are going to beworking frequently with Web services.Remember, shiny new PowerBuilder CDsare the gift that keeps on giving.Resources• SOA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture• Web Service: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service• REST: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REST• SOAP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP• Amazon Web Services:http://aws.amazon.com• Microsoft MSXML Download:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3144b72b-b4f2-46da-b4b6-c5d7485f2b42&displaylang=en#filelist ▼dhp@acm.orgListing 1nvo_internet_result lnvo_internet_resultinet linet_baseinteger li_retvalString ls_url, ls_args//Initialize InternetResult object and//Get Internet service referencelnvo_internet_result = create nvo_internet_resultli_retval = GetContextService(“Internet”, linet_base)//Web Service URL, note the question mark included//on the end. Don’t forget thisls_url=”http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?”//Argument list of name/value pairs in the format//=&ls_args=”Service=AWSECommerceService&” + &“AWSAccessKeyId=[YourAccessKey]&” + &“Operation=ItemSearch&” + &“SearchIndex=Music&” + &“Keywords=Butch Walker”//Concatenate URL with Arguments and call GetURL method.//The response from the web service will be sent to the//InternetData method in the lnvo_internet_result object//and execute the code there (popping up a MessageBox)li_retval = linet_base.GetURL(ls_url + ls_args, &lnvo_internet_result)//Clean updestroy linet_basedestroy lnvo_internet_resultListing 2nvo_internet_result lnvo_internet_resultinet linet_baseinteger li_retvallong ll_content_length, long ll_portString ls_url, ls_args, ls_headersblob lblb_args//Initialize InternetResult object and//Get Internet service referencelnvo_internet_result = create nvo_internet_resultli_retval = GetContextService(“Internet”, linet_base)//Web Service URL, note the question mark included//on the end. Don’t forget thisls_url=”http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?”//Server Port Number, typically 80 or 0 for default//Note putting 443 here does not give you HTTPSll_port = 80//Argument list of name/value pairs in the format//=&ls_args=”Service=AWSECommerceService&” + &“AWSAccessKeyId=[YourAccessKey]&” + &“Operation=ItemSearch&” + &“SearchIndex=Music&” + &“Keywords=Butch Walker”//For PostURL we will convert our argument list//from a string to a blob and get the length of//our resulting bloblblb_args = blob(ls_args)ll_content_length = Len(lblb_args)//For PostURL we also have to set two HTML headers//Content-Length and Content-Type separated by two//newline charactersls_headers = “Content-Length: “ + &String(ll_content_length) + “~n~n” + &“Content-Type: “ + &“application/x-www-form-urlencoded”32 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

We call PostURL with our additional parameters (portbeing//The response from the web service will be sent to the//InternetData method in the lnvo_internet_result object//and execute the code there (popping up a MessageBox)li_retval = linet_base.PostURL(ls_url, &lblb_args, &ls_headers, &ll_port, &lnvo_internet_result)//Clean updestroy linet_basedestroy lnvo_internet_resultListing 3//First download and install the latest XmlHttp package//(this link goes to the one listed in//the connectToNewObject call - “Msxml2.XMLHTTP.4.0”//http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3144b72b-b4f2-46da-b4b6-c5d7485f2b42&displaylang=en#filelist//XmlHttp object method summary//http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/xmlsdk/html/xmmscxmldommethods.aspString ls_get_url, ls_post_urlString ls_args, ls_responseString ls_response_text, ls_status_textlong ll_status_codeOleObject loo_xmlhttpls_get_url = “http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?”ls_post_url = “http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml”ls_args = “Service=AWSECommerceService&” + &“AWSAccessKeyId=[YourAccessKey]&” + &“Operation=ItemSearch&” + &“SearchIndex=Music&” + &“Keywords=Butch Walker”try//Create an instance of our COM objectloo_xmlhttp = CREATE oleobjectloo_xmlhttp.ConnectToNewObject(“Msxml2.XMLHTTP.4.0”)//First lets do a GET requestloo_xmlhttp.open (“GET”,ls_get_url + ls_args, false)loo_xmlhttp.send()//Get our responsels_status_text = loo_xmlhttp.StatusTextll_status_code = loo_xmlhttp.Status//Check HTTP Response code for errors//http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/responses.htmlif ll_status_code >= 300 thenMessageBox(“GET Request Failed”, ls_response_text)else//Get the response we received from the web serverls_response_text = loo_xmlhttp.ResponseTextMessageBox(“GET Request Succeeded”, ls_response_text)end if//Lets do a POST now, notice now we will pass a String//in the send() call that contains the arguments in the//format name1=value1&name2=value2&...loo_xmlhttp.open (“POST”,ls_post_url, false)loo_xmlhttp.setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”, &“application/x-www-form-urlencoded”)loo_xmlhttp.send(ls_args)//Get our responsels_status_text = loo_xmlhttp.StatusTextll_status_code = loo_xmlhttp.Status//Check HTTP Response code for errors//http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/responses.htmlif ll_status_code >= 300 thenMessageBox(“POST Request Failed”, ls_response_text)else//Get the response we received from the web serverls_response_text = loo_xmlhttp.ResponseTextMessageBox(“POST Request Succeeded”,ls_response_text)end if//Done so cleanuploo_xmlhttp.DisconnectObject()catch (RuntimeError rte)MessageBox(“Error”, “RuntimeError - “+ rte.getMessage())end tryListing 4long ll_retval, ll_rowcount, iString ls_accesskeyid, ls_subscriptionid, ls_associatetagString ls_xmlescaping, ls_validate, ls_responseSoapConnection lsoap_connawsecommerceserviceport lws_amazontns__itemsearchrequest lstr_searchrequesttns__itemsearchrequest lstr_searchrequestarray[]tns__operationrequest lstr_operationrequesttns__items lstr_itemsls_accesskeyid = “[YourAccessKey]”ls_subscriptionid = “”ls_associatetag = “”ls_xmlescaping = “Single”ls_validate = “True”lstr_searchrequest.searchindex = “Music”lstr_searchrequest.keywords = “Butch Walker”lws_amazon = create awsecommerceserviceport//Instantiate SOAP connectionlsoap_conn = create SoapConnection// Set trace file to record soap interchange data,ll_retval = lsoap_conn.SetOptions(‘SoapLog=’ + &‘“C:\mySoapLog.log”’)ll_retval = lsoap_conn.CreateInstance(lws_amazon, &“awsecommerceserviceport”)if ll_retval 0 thenas_errmsg = “Unable to create proxy. “ + &“Error Code: “ + String(ll_retval)else// make call to web servicetrylstr_items = lws_amazon.itemsearch(ls_subscriptionid, &ls_accesskeyid, &ls_associatetag, &ls_xmlescaping, &ls_validate, &lstr_searchrequest, &lstr_searchrequestarray, &lstr_operationrequest)ll_rowcount = lstr_items.totalresults//Iterate our response for informationfor i=1 to ll_rowcountls_response = ls_response + &“ASIN: “ + &lstr_items.item[i].asin + &“ Artist: “ + &lstr_items.item[i].itemattributes.artist[1] + &“ Title: “ + &lstr_items.item[i].itemattributes.title + “~r~n”nextMessageBox(“Web Service Response”,ls_response)catch ( SoapException e )MessageBox(“Soap Exception”, &“Cannot invoke Web Service: “ +e.text)end tryend if//Cleanupif isValid(lsoap_conn) thendestroy lsoap_connend ifwww.SYS-CON.COM/pbdj/PBDJ volume12 issue1133

PowerBuilder NewsAll things of interest to the PB community BY BRUCE ARMSTRONGbruce.armstrong@teamsybase.comPowerBuilder Third-PartyEnable 1.2 and SBEEnable, a framework-level tool forthe localization of PowerBuilderapplications, released version 1.2,which introduces Enable Explorer,a powerful runtime utility to viewthe visual structure of running windows,select and take notes oncontrols and DataWindow objects,as well as resize/ move them, andtranslate or modify the translationof each item, including parametricphrases. Explorer can also bedeployed to end users. In addition,Enable Extractor, a fast parser, hasbeen enhanced to capture argumentsto methods parameters(e.g., 1st and 2nd parameters ofMessagebox function calls), andthe filter dialog is now easier to use.Among multiple other improvements,Enable now also automaticallytranslates computed fields.With the release of version 1.2, aSmall Business Edition (SBE) withfull functionality has also beenpresented to meet the localizationrequirements of developers withless complex client/server applications(600 text strings or fewer).www.enable-pb.comPBL Peeper10/7 – Techno-Kitten.com addednew features to PBL Peeper. Itreads folders of export files (thisfeature may be a little raw, i.e.,untested). Command-line parametersare documented in themanual. Otherwise, on the PBLspage, select Export folders underFolder selection and drag a foldereither from Explorer or thedisk/folder list on the left.www.techno-kitten.comSybase CorporateSAP NetWeaver11/14 – Sybase, Inc., announcedthat its highly scalable analyticsserver, Sybase IQ, has receivedcertification for integration withSAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence(SAP NetWeaver BI), achieving“Certified for SAP NetWeaver”status. SAP NetWeaver BI, a componentof SAP NetWeaver’s comprehensiveintegration and applicationplatform, helps customersintegrate data from across theenterprise and beyond, and thentransform it into practical, timelybusiness information to drivesound decision-making, targetedaction, and solid business results.Sybase IQ is an analytics serverthat runs on standard hardwareand operating systems, especiallydesigned for business intelligence.Combining the power of SAP withSybase IQ’s unsurpassed queryperformance and storage efficiencyfor structured and unstructureddata, companies can save time,storage capacity, and overall costs.2005 Mobile EnterpriseCompany of the Year Award11/9 – Frost & Sullivan presentedSybase with its 2005 MobileEnterprise Company of the YearAward. Sybase and its subsidiary,iAnywhere, is credited with introducingthe industry’s first mobiledatabase for laptops, the firstmobile synchronization, and thefirst small fingerprint database forhandheld and memory-constraineddevices.Sybase considers mergers andacquisitions as key to its visionand business strategy. The Avant-Go technology acquisition in 2003helped iAnywhere open itsmobile database to Web developersand gain traction in the ondemandmobile applications andconsumer content markets. ItsMay 2004 acquisition of XcelleNet,a specialist in mobile datamanagement, remote devicemanagement, and mobile datasecurity, added 2,200 customersto Sybase’s customer base andreinforced partner relationshipswithin the mobile ecosystem.Visual Studio 200511/7 – Sybase, Inc., announced itscontinued and expanded commitmentand support for theMicrosoft .NET environment.Sybase, a premier partner in theMicrosoft Visual Studio IndustryPartner (VSIP) program, offersdevelopment and modeling productsthat either support or areintegrated into the .NET environment,including DataWindow.NET 2.0, PocketBuilder, Power-Builder, PowerDesigner, and SQLAnywhere. In addition, Sybase isexpanding its support for other.NET Framework-based technologies,including Sybase AdaptiveServer Enterprise (ASE) 15.0enterprise-class database, Afariamanagement and security formobile platforms, and RFID Anywhere,middleware platform.iAnywhereFaith Footwear Limited11/24 – iAnywhere, a subsidiaryof Sybase, Inc., announced thataward-winning UK footwearretailer, Faith Footwear Limited,has extended its use of iAnywheretechnology with the deploymentof iAnywhere Afaria, which hasbeen rolled out throughout headoffice as well as to 75 Faith storesand 100 plus concessions acrossthe UK.Afaria has enhanced theremote back-office managementand transfer of informationbetween Faith’s branch officesand concessions, and its mainheadquarters including sales figures,inventory details, stockordering, and customer serviceinformation. It has supersededthe company’s incumbent datamanagement solution – iAnywhereRemoteWare. The latterhad been in use at the companyfor five years when Faith decidedto expand the functionality of itsback office systems to include anumber of additional features.Advantage Database Server 8.011/8 – iAnywhere, a subsidiary ofSybase, Inc., announced that it’sstrengthening its database managementportfolio with therelease of Advantage DatabaseServer 8.0. Advantage DatabaseServer is a full-featured, high-performanceclient/server datamanagement system targetedtoward Borland Delphi and C++Builder developers. The new featuresin Advantage Data Architect,Advantage Replication,Advantage Online Backup andSQL scripting will enhanceAdvantage Database Server 8.0with ease-of-use, performanceand efficiency. The AdvantageDatabase Server was recentlyacquired by Sybase through itspurchase of Extended Systems inOctober 2005.Advantage 8.0 provides developerswith the functionality theyrequire to easily build scalablebusiness applications with lowadministration requirements.Major new features include anewly designed Advantage DataArchitect, replication support,online backup functionality, andthe addition of SQL scripting.Financial FusionFinancial Partners, Inc.11/15 – Financial Fusion, Inc., aSybase company, announced thatFinancial Partners, Inc. (FPI), hasimplemented Financial Fusion’sCorporate Banking Solution. FPIhas deployed Corporate BankingSolution 2.4 to support a widerange of Farm Credit organizationsincluding their multiple, diversemarket segments from smallerbusinesses to large corporate entities.The new solution was implementedin partnership with Data-House, a Financial Fusion partner.This solution allows businessesto manage their accounts, accessinformation services, and performfull-service money movementfunctions including ACHand wire transfers all with anintuitive user interface.34 PBDJ volume12 issue11pbdj.sys-con.com

Forget the wires.We knowthe ropes.Wondering how to get your Wi-Fi projectsoff the ground? We can showyou how. We’re iAnywhere Solutions,the leading provider of solutions forthe unwired enterprise.Emerging wireless technologies suchas Wi-Fi now enable businesses todeliver a desktop computing experienceto mobile workers. We havemore than a decade of experiencedelivering "always available" access tocorporate data and applications –keeping your mobile workers productivewhen they don’t have a wirelessconnection and providing informationsecurity and synchronization serviceswhen they enter a wireless LAN or hotspot.More than ten thousand companiesand one thousand partners worldwiderely on mobile technology fromiAnywhere Solutions.Let us show you the ropes to get yourWi-Fi solutions off the ground quickly.Call 1-800-801-2069 or visitwww.ianywhere.com.Copyright 2003. iAnywhere Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. iAnywhere is a trademark of Sybase, Inc. or its subsidiaries.All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.www.ianywhere.com