The PJX Analyzer is a utility that determines the contents of a Visual FoxPro application by examining the application's PJX file and associated files. The information from that examination is concisely displayed through a graphical user interface or printed reports.

The information gathered by PJX Analyzer provides initial metrics for the size and complexity of a VFP application. This is a necessary (though not entirely sufficient) element of estimating the level of effort involved in a conversion or rewrite of a VFP application to another platform such as .NET. Please contact us at info@vfpconversion.com or (832) 717-4445 x 13 to get more information.

PJX Analyzer Pro will perform the examination of an application’s project and display major statistics and metrics determined during the application examination and includes a suite of eleven analytic subsystems. Each analytic subsystem contains a flexible GUI and printed report to facilitate a detailed analysis of the respective application components.

Results of a PJX Analyzer examination are stored in "XML files" which can be e-mailed to EPS Software for further analysis at

The PJX Analyzer examines the application's PJX file to determine the number of:

• Class Libraries (VCX)
• Forms (Screens) (SCX)
• Programs (PRG)
• Reports (FRX)
• Labels (LBX)
• Database Containers (DBC)
• Free tables (DBF)
• Menus (MNX)
• RQBE Queries (QPR)
• Icon files (ICO)
• Text files (TXT)
• FoxPro Libraries (FLL)
• FoxPro Applications (APP)
• Other files (e.g. MNX, BMP, MSK, GIF)

The PJX Analyzer reduces the detailed application metrics to determine project-wide metrics including:

• Number of classes, procedures, functions and ActiveX controls.
• Number of commands, average number of commands per procedure (or function or method), and maximum number of commands per procedure/function/method.

The project-wide statistics and metrics are available in both the PJX Analyzer PRO and Lite versions. Detailed statistics and metrics are available in the PJX Analyzer PRO version.

The PJX Analyzer will examine the application's class libraries (VCX) to determine the contained classes. The PJX Analyzer will then determine for each class in the class library the number of:

• Commands
• Procedures
• Functions
• Containers
• PageFrames and Pages
• OptionGroups and OptionButtons
• CommandGroups and CommandButtons
• Grids
• Other UI controls (e.g. textBox/editBox/checkBox/button)
• ActiveX controls
• Class libraries external to the class library being examined
• The number of SET RELATION commands
• The number of SET FILTER commands
• The number of macro expansions (&) and EVALUATE() commands

Metrics:

• Most Commands - The largest number of commands in any procedure, function or method in a class.
• Nesting Depth - The container nesting depth for a given control.
• Subclassing Depth - The number of times VFP must invoke a ParentClass before a control is completely instantiated.

The PJX Analyzer will examine the application’s forms/screens (SCX) to determine the number of contained:

• Control Types (by BaseClass)
• Commands
• Procedures
• Functions
• Containers
• PageFrames and Pages
• OptionGroups and OptionButtons
• CommandGroups and CommandButtons
• Grids
• Other UI controls (e.g. textBox/editBox/checkBox/button) and baseclasses for those controls
• ActiveX controls
• External class libraries
• The number of SET RELATION commands
• The number of SET FILTER commands
• The number of macro expansions (&) and EVALUATE() commands
• The PJX Analyzer will also determine if the form has a private data session.

Metrics:

• Most Commands - The largest number of commands in any procedure, function or method in a form.
• Nesting Depth - The container nesting depth for a given control.
• Subclassing Depth - The number of times VFP must invoke a ParentClass before a control is completely instantiated.

The PJX Analyzer examines any VCX classes referenced by the form to determine if there are additional controls within the VCX classes, not explicitly referenced by the form. Container nesting and subclassing metrics include the impact of VCX classes on the form. However the count of procedures and functions, and the commands/most-commands metrics are restricted to the forms. Procedures, functions and commands in referenced VCX classes are not counted because they are counted in the VCX metrics.

• Command lines
• Classes
• Procedures
• Functions
• Most command lines per procedure or function
• The number of SET RELATION commands
• The number of SET FILTER commands
• The number of macro expansions (&) and EVALUATE() commands

• Controls
• Controls with expressions (code)
• Groupings
• Variables
• ActiveX Controls
• The PJX Analyzer will also determine if the report form has a private data session.

The PJX Analyzer will examine the application's database containers (DBCs) to determine the number of:

• Contained tables
• Views
• Relations
• Stored procedures
• Connections

The PJX Analyzer will examine the application's free data tables (DBFs) to determine the number of:

• Columns
• Index tags
• Rows

The PJX Analyzer will determine the individual ActiveX controls used by the application and the number of times each ActiveX control is instantiated in the application.

New in version 1.7, PJX Analyzer stores metrics of all methods at the method level. “Methods” are procedural Procs and Funcs (functions) as well as class methods. Identifying method information includes:

• File name
• Class name
• Method Name

Metrics stored are:

• Commands (for that method)
• Trigger Phrase (first one found in the method)

Method metrics data can be substantially larger than the rest of the PJX Analysis data (often hundreds of times more data) and takes proportionally longer to load. It often takes method metrics more than a minute to load, yet the rest of the PJX Analysis data can load in seconds. If you have PJX Analyzer PRO and you’re interested in method statistics, check the “Load Method Stats” checkbox on the “Project” page before clicking the “Get Project Information” button. If you’ve already gotten the Project Information without method statistics, you can still get the method statistics by checking the “Load Method Stats” checkbox.

A trigger phrase is a string that can be parsed out of the method code in a VCX class or SCX form, or anywhere in a PRG.
Trigger phrase search/metrics were implemented in response to the need to determine project velocity in a project where a DBF data store was being upsized to SQL Server, but the VFP code was being retained. To assist in determining project velocity, the development team was instructed to add specific trigger phrases to comments inside of methods (e.g. “CONVERTED – FRED – June 31, 2008”). By running PJX Analyzer against the VFP code on a weekly basis, the project manager developed and maintained metrics on the number of methods converted, number of methods converted by developer and size of the methods converted by developer.

• Check the “Trigger Phrases” checkbox on the Project Tab to enable Trigger Phrases searches. Add appropriate Trigger Phrases to the “Phrases” grid in the Methods tab, and then run the PJX Analyzer against the target project. The first trigger phrase encountered in a method is captured and stored with the number of commands for that method. The results of the Method analysis can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet.

Method Analysis/Trigger Phrases are available only in PJX Analyzer PRO.

• Commands — The number of VFP commands (versus the number of lines of code). Often code is broken across multiple lines and separated with comments and blank lines. This is a highly desirable practice which can dramatically enhance code legibility, especially with SQL queries. However, variations in style will lead to inconsistent metrics regarding the actual quantity of code. The PJX Analyzer ignores non-command lines:
1. Comments (“*”, “&&”)
2. Blank lines
3. TEXT/ENDTEXT blocks
4. “END” commands (e.g. ENDIF, ENDDO, ENDSCAN)


… And concatenates command lines that are broken with line continuation characters (“;”). Therefore, the number of commands is the actual number of VFP commands, regardless comments and coding style.


• Most Commands — The largest number of commands in any procedure or function in a class, form or program file.



• Nesting Depth — The container nesting depth for a given control. For example the textbox at the end of MyForm•PageFrame1•Page1•cntHoldAddress•txtZipcode would be nested four levels deep.(Hint: Count the dots). The PJX Analyzer determines the deepest nesting and the average nesting for all controls in a class or form. The container nesting depth analysis applies only to forms and visual class libraries.



• Subclassing Depth — In the PJX Analyzer, the subclassing metric is the number of times VFP must invoke a ParentClass before a control is completely instantiated (e.g. A credit card textbox control that is optimized to validate credit card numbers is subclassed from a textbox class which is subclassed from the VFP textbox base class. The credit card textbox control has a subclassing metric of two). The PJX Analyzer determines the deepest subclassing depth and the average subclassing depth for all controls in the class. The subclassing depth analysis applies only to forms and visual class libraries.



• Data Reduction The transformation of raw data into a more useful form of data.

Results of the PJX Analyzer project examination are stored in a set of XML files. The XML files are written to the PJX Analyzer’s directory. The XML files can be moved to another directory and accessed via the PJX Analyzer without rerunning the examination. However, if a new examination is run and a previous examination’s XML files are in the PJX Analyzer directory, the old XML files will be erased when the new examination is run.

The PJX Analyzer was developed with Visual FoxPro version 8. It has been tested with VFP versions 8 through 9 (SP1) on Windows XP Pro SP2.