Tip: Comparing Trace Files

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Trace files can give a lot of nice troubleshooting information, sometimes too much.  Sometimes, you may have a situation where a problem occurs in one system but not in another.  You could run a trace in both systems, but comparing those trace files is difficult.  Each line has a timestamp, which will be different in each file.

Here is a trick for getting rid of those timestamps.  Here is the source:

sed : Remove first 4 letters in each line

Of course, you need Linux, Unix, or Cygwin for this — something with the sed program.  Here is the command:

sed 's/^.\{51\}//g' "mytrace.tracesql" > modtrace.tracesql

For example, here are the first few lines of a trace file:

PSAPPSRV.248 (181) 	 1-1      10.24.26             Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.001000 COM Stmt=SELECT VERSION FROM PSVERSION WHERE OBJECTTYPENAME = 'SYS'
PSAPPSRV.248 (181) 	 1-2      10.24.26    0.003000 Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.001000 COM Stmt=SELECT PORTAL_NAME, PORTAL_REFTYPE, PORTAL_OBJNAME FROM PSPRSMDEFN WHERE VERSION > :1 UNION SELECT PORTAL_NAME, PORTAL_REFTYPE, PORTAL_OBJNAME FROM PSPRSMDEL WHERE VERSION > :2
PSAPPSRV.248 (181) 	 1-3      10.24.26    0.000000 Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.000000 Bind-1 type=8 length=4 value=214748355

After running the command, here is what it looks like:

Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.001000 COM Stmt=SELECT VERSION FROM PSVERSION WHERE OBJECTTYPENAME = 'SYS'
Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.001000 COM Stmt=SELECT PORTAL_NAME, PORTAL_REFTYPE, PORTAL_OBJNAME FROM PSPRSMDEFN WHERE VERSION > :1 UNION SELECT PORTAL_NAME, PORTAL_REFTYPE, PORTAL_OBJNAME FROM PSPRSMDEL WHERE VERSION > :2
Cur#1.248.FSDEV90 RC=0 Dur=0.000000 Bind-1 type=8 length=4 value=214748355

Now, you can use a tool like Beyond Compare or Meld to compare the trace files without the timestamp.  If you don’t have a compare tool, look here.

Good Looking Messages

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I have often wanted to display an informational message at the top of the page.  Rather than just slap a Long Edit Box at the top of the screen, I decided to look for a nice looking way to do it.  One of the great things about PeopleSoft, it always has an example somewhere in the huge product for what you are trying to do.

Here are some of the messages that I found:

Information Message:

Example Page: SSS_STDNTCTR_SR_SP

Here are the different pieces:

• Stylesheet of the page: SSS_STYLESHEET
• Group Box:
  • Label Stylesheet: PAGROUPBOXLABELINVISIBLE
  • Body Stylesheet: SSSMSGINFOFRAME
• Static Image:
  • Image: PS_CS_MESSAGE_INFO_ICN
  • Size: 23×23
• Static Text:
  • Style: SSSMSGINFOTEXT

Alert Message:

Example Page: SSF_SS_ERRORMSG

Here are the different pieces:

• Page Stylesheet: SSS_STYLESHEET
• Group Box
  • Label Stylesheet: PAGROUPBOXLABELINVISIBLE
  • Body Stylesheet: SSSMSGALERTFRAME
• Push Button (for the image, you could use a static icon instead)
  • Image: PS_CS_MESSAGE_ALERT_ICN
  • Size: Large Icon
• Long Edit Box (works the same as the static textbox, but lets you change it from code)
  • Stylesheet: SSSMSGALERTTEXT
  • No Label

PeopleTools Tip: PeopleCode Dump

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Application Designer has an option to search through the text of the code, but it takes way too long to search the whole system on a regular basis. Thankfully, Application Designer also has a way to dump all of the code to a text file.

From Application Designer, choose Edit > Find In…

Next, enter a semicolon(;) for the search text and check the option “Save PeopleCode to File”

Important: This will take a long time and a lot of memory to finish. So, increase your virtual memory and let it run overnight. If you have a team of developers, have one person do the dump and put it on a network location where everyone can view it.

If you don’t enough memory, you may get an error message like this:

If so, go to the control panel and open the System icon.  Go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under performance.  Under the “Advanced” tab in the performance options dialog, change the virtual memory.  The steps to increase the memory might be slightly different depending on your flavor of Windows.

PeopleTools Tip: Finding a Component Interfaces

If you know the name of the component interface, you can easily find it in App Designer.  Just press Ctrl+O or File > Open and search for it by name.  But, what if you only know the name of the component that the component interface accesses?

You have to go to the database.  Try this SQL (replacing <Component_Name> with your actual component) :

SELECT * FROM PSBCDEFN
WHERE BCPGNAME = '<Component_Name>'

PeopleTools Tip — Cloning a Component Interface

Have you ever tried to recreate a component interface and allow PeopleSoft to default the properties and collections? The hard part is that you have to make sure that it uses the same names as your old one or you will have to change your code.

The following SQL helped me figure how to change my code to refer to the correct fields (ex. effdt or effdt0). I was cloning the delivered CI_JOB_DATA component interface with a brand new customized component interface.

SELECT A.BCNAME, A.BCTYPE || ‘:’ || A.BCSCROLL || ‘:’ || A.BCSCROLLNUM || ‘->’ || A.BCSCROLLNAME LOC, A.BCITEMPARENT, A.BCITEMNAME,
A.RECNAME, A.FIELDNAME,
B.BCNAME, B.BCTYPE || ‘:’ || B.BCSCROLL || ‘:’ || B.BCSCROLLNUM || ‘->’ || B.BCSCROLLNAME LOC, B.BCITEMPARENT, B.BCITEMNAME
FROM PSBCITEM A, PSBCITEM B, PSBCITEM AP, PSBCITEM BP
WHERE A.BCNAME = ‘<Old component interface name>‘
AND A.BCNAME = AP.BCNAME(+)
AND B.BCNAME = ‘<New component interface name>‘
AND B.BCNAME = BP.BCNAME(+)
AND A.BCITEMPARENT = AP.BCITEMNAME(+)
AND B.BCITEMPARENT = BP.BCITEMNAME(+)
AND A.RECNAME = B.RECNAME
AND A.FIELDNAME = B.FIELDNAME
AND (BP.RECNAME = AP.RECNAME OR (BP.RECNAME IS NULL AND AP.RECNAME IS NULL))
AND A.BCITEMPARENT = ‘<Parent collection name>‘
AND A.BCITEMNAME = ‘<Item name>‘

Examples:
<Old component interface name> — CI_JOB_DATA
<Parent collection name> — COLL_JOB_EARNS_DIST
<Item name> — KEYPROP_ERNCD

PeopleTools Tip: Searching for Records

You can find records that contain a specific field with the find definition references tool in App Designer, but what if you want to know what record contains field1 and field2?

You can go to the database to file that answer:

SELECT A.RECNAME
FROM PSRECFIELDALL A, PSRECFIELDALL B
WHERE A.RECNAME = B.RECNAME
AND A.FIELDNAME = ‘FIELD1’
AND B.FIELDNAME = ‘FIELD2’