TOP for Developers

Example: Using the Editor with Compiler Output

1. Compile a source file (with some compilation errors), directing the compilation output to a spooler location or an edit file.

2. Open the source file in the editor (navigate to the file in TOP, right-click and pick Edit from the menu)

3. In the editor menu, use Build|Load Existing Output|Spooler Job or  Build|Load Existing Output|Edit File and navigate to the output location. The compiler output will be opened in a window below the source file.

4. Click on the edit window and press F4 (or use the Search|Next Error menu selection) to automatically scroll to the next compilation error in the code. The output window will also be scrolled. Use Shift-F4 to look at  the previous error.

   

Example: Compiling from the Editor 

To compile from within the editor, you must define a "tool" that TOP can use to do the compile. A TOP tool defines a program or script to run on the NonStop. TOP provides variables that you can use in the script or as program arguments so that a single tool can be used to compile many different programs.

The example is for a COBOL85 compile. More complex examples are on the tool samples page.

1. Click on Tools|Organise in the main TOP menu. A dialog showing any existing tools will be displayed. Click on the "Add" button and the Tool Add dialog will be displayed. 



2. This example runs the COBOL85 compiler directly, appending an "o" to the file name to create the object name. If you use a more sophisticated compilation environment,  you may need a more complex Tool.

3. Now open the source file up in the editor and click on Build|Properties. Select the new compile tool as the Compile Tool.



4. Press Ctrl-F7 or select Build|Compile from the editor menu. The editor will switch to read only-mode while the compiler runs. When the compiler has finished, the editor will return to edit mode, and any compilation errors can be navigated in the same way as the earlier example.

Example: Run from the Editor 

To run files from within the editor you can use a "tool" which will execute the target file, or you can just run the target files directly. The best approach to take will depend on the run-time environment.

Stand-alone programs or TACL code can be executed directly, but programs which are part of a more complex application usually need a script to be run to set up the run-time environment in this case, a tool will have to be configured as it was for the compile above. The tool samples contains more examples of this type of tool configuration.

Specify the approach you are going to take and the file or tool to run in the Build Properties dialog (Build|Properties menu).

Once you have configured how the file is run, you can run it directly from the editor using the Build|Run menu command or its shortcut F8.

Example: Comparing Files 

To compare files within TOP a user first has to configure the PC-based comparison tool that they want to use within TOP (This is a one-off task). Within TOP, use the Session|Options|Global menu command and open the "File Compare" tab. Set the compare and merge tool that you will use by browsing to it. If it is one of the tools with extended TOP support, you can then click the relevant button to set the compare options, otherwise refer to the compare tool documentation.

Once the compare tool is configured using it to compare and merge files on the NonStop is simple. Select one (or both) files in TOP, then use the context (right-click) menu and pick "Compare". Once you have specified both files, the compare tool will be started with the NonStop files.

In the example illustrated, the open source WinMerge tool is used.