Logging ILF execution

Occasionally we encounter intermittent problems that are difficult to track down. We know the problem is in our code somewhere, but we can't see how the user is getting the faulty code to run or we can't tell how they get to a certain process.

APPX provides a detailed logging facility (similar to the Trace utility that is available when you use Option 99 to invoke a process) that will show every statement executed in each event point together with the values of the referenced variables and data fields at that point in time and any True/False flags. The log is formatted as an HTML document, making it easy to view with any web browser. To activate the log, simply set the environment variable APPX_ILF_LOG equal to a file name and APPX_DB_TRAPS=1. Make sure that the user APPX has write permissions to the file location that you specify.

Mixing the output from several users into one log file will give you meaningless output so it is important to ensure that only one user is writing to the log file at any given time. Depending on your system configuration , you can set the HTML logging variables in the user's appx.env file, in the batch file with which APPX is invoked or you can assign those variables to a particular port. For example, when defining the service with `appxdsvc', append the environment variables to the end of the line defining the service:

appxdsvc ­install ­name=appx8062 ­displayname="Port for ILF Logging only" ­port=8062 -engine=c:\appx.exe APPXPATH=c:\appx\data APPX_KEYMAP=Windows APPX_ILF_LOG=c:\ilflog.html APPX_DB_TRAPS=1

Links in PDF Documents

If your PDF report includes an Email address or web address, that data will automatically become a hyperlink when viewed in Adobe Acrobat. You don't have to do anything special to make the hyperlink available, but you might want to consider underlining the data or printing it in a different colour to indicate to the end user that the field is clickable.





For additional information, contact tips@cwi-appx.com

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