TNS/E Native Application Conversion Guide

Introduction to Native Mode
TNS/E Native Application Conversion Guide—529659-003
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Native Mode Debugging Tools
As part of the migration process, the tool ensures that all files pertaining to the TDS
target remain part of the ETK project. However, file properties for file types that are
unknown to ETK are not migrated. For every such file type, users must explicitly add
these file properties in ETK. The migration tool supports the following file extensions:
.cpp, .css, .tal, .cob, and .cbl.
Native Mode Debugging Tools
The TNS/E native environment offers two symbolic debugging tools: Native Inspect
and Visual Inspect. The TNS/R machine-level Debug facility is not supported on TNS/E
systems. However, both Native Inspect and Visual Inspect have been enhanced with
machine-level debugging capabilities and can be used as replacements for Debug.
The Inspect debugger is available on TNS/E systems, but can be used only for
debugging TNS processes. After converting a program to native mode, you must use
either Visual Inspect or Native Inspect.
Visual Inspect
Visual Inspect supports high-level symbolic debugging of TNS (interpreted and
accelerated) and native processes through a PC-based (GUI). Visual Inspect can also
be used for debugging TNS and native snapshot files. Most Visual Inspect commands
apply to both TNS and native processes. You can use Visual Inspect to debug
programs created by the PC cross compilers (C, C++, COBOL, and pTAL). For native
mode debugging, you can invoke Visual Inspect from within ETK.
Visual Inspect is the preferred application debugging tool in the TNS/E native
environment, and you are encouraged to do as much as possible of your native mode
development and debugging on the PC platform. Visual Inspect offers a simpler and
more intuitive user interface and more capabilities than the command line debuggers.
For example, working from a PC, you can use Visual Inspect to debug multiple
processes residing on the same or on different nodes in a network. The processes can
be TNS, TNS/R native, or TNS/E native. Inspect and Native Inspect do not provide this
capability.
The H-series product version of Visual Inspect has been enhanced for machine-level
debugging; you can use it for low-level debugging tasks on the PC that needed to be
done in previous RVUs on the Integrity NonStop server using Debug or Inspect.
Note. In the TDS project system, a file type can be independent of the file extension. For
example, a file1.cpp file can have the file type set as .cob. In this case, although the file as
a .cpp extension, it behaves as a COBOL file and is recognized as such by the COBOL cross
compiler. In the ETK project system, file type information is based solely on the file extension;
for example, ETK will always treat file1.cpp as a C++ file. For the migration tool to preserve
file semantics while migrating TDS targets, there cannot be any file in the TDS target that has
a mismatch between its extension and its type. On encountering the first such file, the tool
generates an error and the TDS target is not migrated.