Introduction

This section lists the major changes that have been made in CAST AIP 8.3.x with regard to specific technologies and how they are delivered and analyzed:

Extensions shipped with CAST AIP 8.3.x and installed as part of the upgrade/new installation

As part of CAST's drive to improve and speed up the frequency of software releases, a process of "externalizing" the source code delivery and analysis capabilities of CAST AIP has begun in CAST AIP 8.3.x. To this end the following items (official CAST AIP extensions) are shipped with CAST AIP 8.3.x and are installed automatically as part of the upgrade process and also when installing new CAST AIP "triplets". Please ensure that you read the documentation for these extensions and take note of any Known Issues that may occur.

See Assessment Model updates for more information.

.NET

Externalized as an extension

The .NET Analyzer has been "externalized" as an official CAST AIP Extension from CAST AIP 8.3.3. This extension is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.3 with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade. All documentation relating to the .NET Analyzer, such as technology support updates, bug fixes, source code qualification and packaging etc. is now available in the corresponding documentation: .NET Analyzer.

ASP (classic)

There is no change to the way in which CAST AIP handles classic ASP (Active Server Pages) applications "out of the box" (see ASP), however, the HTML5/JavaScript extension which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x, is also now capable of analyzing classic ASP applications.

Below is a comparison of the analysis of the same classic ASP application with results from the HTML5/JavaScript extension on the left and results with the ASP analyzer embedded in CAST AIP on the right:

Some additional links are provided in certain situations:

But less information in other situations:

IBM Db2 UDB / z/OS

CAST has provided support for analyzing both IBM Db2 UDB and IBM Db2 z/OS via its Db2 Analyzer (provided out-of-the-box in CAST AIP ≤ 8.2.x) for some time now. This "legacy" analyzer requires the following:

• For IBM Db2 UDB you must manually define a connection to the Db2 UDB instance - this instance must be available during the analysis process in the CAST Management Studio - this is known as an "online" analysis. In addition, a Db2 client layer must be installed on the workstation on which the CAST Management Studio is being run from.
• For IBM Db2 z/OS a standalone extractor based on JCL must be installed on the target z/OS execution environment and then run to output data that the Db2 Analyzer can handle.

These requirements can sometimes present significant difficulties for the process of on-boarding an IBM Db2 application into CAST AIP. As a direct result of this and wanting to simplify the approach, CAST has developed the SQL Analyzer as a standalone extension. The extension analyzes DDL, DML and SQL exports and (in version ≥ 2.0) supports the analysis of IBM Db2. The analysis is therefore "offline" (no connection to a live database is required).

From CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.x, the legacy Db2 Analyzer (provided out-of-the-box in CAST AIP) is no longer available, therefore:

• to onboard and analyze new IBM Db2 UDB and IBM Db2 z/OS applications, you must use the SQL Analyzer version ≥ 2.0, which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade.
• for upgrades to CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.43:
  • The legacy Db2 Analyzer embedded in AIP Core has been totally removed. This means that when upgrading from AIP Core 8.2.x with legacy Db2 (UDB or z/OS) source code packages, the packages will be upgraded to AIP Core 8.3.43, however any post-upgrade consistency snapshot will fail since the analyzer no longer exists. Therefore, CAST recommends removing these packages and that you transition to the SQL Analyzer version ≥ 2.0 BEFORE you start the process of upgrading to CAST AIP 8.3.43. See SQL Analyzer - To do transition from the CAST AIP Db2 Analyzer to the SQL Analyzer extension.
• for upgrades to CAST AIP ≤ 8.3.42: 
  
  • existing IBM Db2 UDB and IBM Db2 z/OS analyses will still function and will not block the post-upgrade consistency snapshot, however, it will not be possible to package new source code in existing or new packages, therefore CAST recommends that you transition to the SQL Analyzer version ≥ 2.0 BEFORE you start the process of upgrading to CAST AIP 8.3.x. See SQL Analyzer - To do transition from the CAST AIP Db2 Analyzer to the SQL Analyzer extension.

JEE

The JEE Analyzer has been "externalized" as an official CAST AIP Extension in this release of CAST AIP. This extension is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade. All documentation relating to the JEE Analyzer, such as technology support updates, bug fixes, source code qualification and packaging etc. is now available in the corresponding documentation: JEE Analyzer.

See also Web Technologies below.

Oracle Forms/Reports

Delivery and packaging

The delivery and packaging of Oracle Forms and Reports source code in previous releases of CAST AIP was completed as follows:

• Raw Oracle Forms and Reports files were fed into the CAST Delivery Manager Tool (DMT) and an extractor embedded into the DMT transformed these files into a format that could be understood by the Oracle Forms Analyzer.
• An Oracle Forms runtime was required on the workstation on which the DMT was being run from.
• Only Oracle Forms 32bit was supported by the extractor embedded into DMT.

To simplify the approach, CAST has developed a standalone CAST Oracle Forms Extractor which can be run at will without the need to use the CAST Delivery Manager Tool. In addition this extractor now supports 64bit (as well as 32bit) Oracle Forms runtimes. The output of this standalone extractor is fed into the CAST Delivery Manager Tool for packaging.

Therefore, in CAST AIP 8.3.x, a new method for packaging and delivering Oracle Forms source code must be used. When delivering source code in this way, analysis results will be identical to those produced by the "legacy" method that was available in previous releases of CAST AIP. Please see Oracle Forms and Reports for more information.

New object icons

The icons used to represent Oracle Forms and Reports objects in CAST Enlighten and other CAST AIP applications have been improved. You can see the new icons in Oracle Forms and Reports.

Oracle PL/SQL

• CAST AIP > 8.3.10: "AS OF" statements are now supported syntax and will not generate a syntax error during the analysis.
• CAST AIP > 8.3.13: "XMLROOR" statements are now supported syntax and will not generate a syntax error during the analysis.

SAP BusinessObjects

CAST has provided support for analyzing SAP BusinessObjects source code via its BO Analyzer (provided out-of-the-box in CAST AIP ≤ 8.2.x) for some time now. This "legacy" analyzer requires the following:

• SAP BusinessObjects (the BO Designer module) must be installed on the workstation on which the CAST Management Studio is being run from.
• you must manually define a connection to the SAP BusinessObjects instance on which your Universe files are used - this instance must be available during the analysis process in the CAST Management Studio - this is known as an "online" analysis.

These requirements can sometimes present significant difficulties for the process of on-boarding a SAP BusinessObjects application into CAST AIP. As a direct result of this and wanting to simplify the approach, CAST has developed the SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer as a standalone extension. The extension (introduced in CAST AIP 8.2.5) provides a means to analyze SAP BusinessObjects source code "offline", i.e. no connection to the SAP BusinessObjects instance is required. In addition there is no longer any requirement to have BusinessObjects (the BO Designer module) installed on the workstation on which the CAST Management Studio is being run from.

From CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.x, the legacy BO Analyzer (provided out-of-the-box in CAST AIP) is no longer available, therefore:

• to analyze new SAP BusinessObjects applications, you must use the SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer (together with the CAST SAP BusinessObjects Extractor - not delivered with CAST AIP) which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade.
• for upgrades to CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.x, existing SAP BusinessObjects analyses will no longer function and will block the post-upgrade consistency snapshot. As such, CAST recommends that you transition to the SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer AFTER an upgrade, but BEFORE you generate a post-upgrade consistency snapshot (see Switching from legacy to new delivery/analysis method in SAP BusinessObjects Analyzer - 1.0).

SAP ABAP

• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.18: the following syntax is now supported:
  • CALL TRANSACTION...WITH AUTHORITY-CHECK USING
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.15: the following syntax is now supported:
  • MODULE call statement with switch in flow logic
  • Variables whose names start with '-' (minus) sign
  • DELETE FROM statement with "UP TO" addition
  • CASE WHEN expressions with "IS NULL" addition
  • Parenthesis of the INTO close of SELECT statements
  • VALUE #( ... ) when expression contains "IN GROUP"
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.13: the following syntax is now supported:
  
  • GROUP BY
  • REDEFINITION
  • "PACKAGE SIZE" in FETCH ... INTO
  • CLIENT SPECIFIED CONNECTION
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.10: the following changes have been introduced:
  • useLinks between screen and programs have been removed (they negatively impacted transactions)
  • processing screens parents are now their program, and not their package
  • unresolved objects are now of type processingScreen and not selectionScreen (when a "call screen 100" statement exists and the screen does not exist).
  • name of unresolved object which was 0100 for example (beginning with 0) becomes 100 (it can be called with "call screen 100" or "call screen 0100". Then 100 and 0100 are the same).
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.6: the following syntax is now supported:
  • RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE...MESSAGE
  • Keywords: '*' , '&&', '(', 'DATA', '.' and '['.
    
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.4: ABAP 7.5 is now supported.
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.3: the following syntax is also now supported:
  
  • RISK
  • CONNECTION
  • CLASS RANDOM DEFINITION
• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.2: Generated code (i.e. generated/modified by the SAP user) is no longer taken into account for Rule calculations and is no longer displayed in the CAST dashboards. Only custom code is used for Rule calculations. See also Changes in results post upgrade - 8.3.2.

T-SQL

• CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.13 - in previous releases of CAST AIP, when using the T-SQL analyzer embedded in CAST AIP, Microsoft table columns and view columns were not correctly recorded in the CDT_OBJECTS table in the Analysis Service schema (local). This impacted results for certain CAST tools. This bug has been fixed and new objects will be visible for Microsoft table columns and view columns.

Web technologies

The ability to analyze "Web technologies" such as:

• Image files (.gif, .jpg etc.)
• HTML files (.htm, .html, .htc etc.)
• Script files (.js, .vbs etc.)
• Style sheets (.css)

Has been removed from the .NET Analyzer and from the JEE Analyzer extension. This change has been made to take advantage of the superior analysis capabilities of the HTML5/JavaScript extension, which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x. Functionally, this is achieved as described below.

JEE Analyzer extension

• Ability to select Client File Extensions corresponding to web technologies has been removed from the Analysis tab > Default Source Options in the CAST Management Studio
  

• The option Default Scripting language for client side has been removed from the Analysis tab > Default Source Options in the CAST Management Studio
  

.NET Analyzer

• The option Enable HTML / Javascript analysis has been removed from the Production tab > Web Parsing Options in the CAST Management Studio

How are web technologies analyzed in CAST AIP 8.3.x?

As mentioned above, applications containing web technologies can now be handled by the HTML5/JavaScript extension, which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade. An additional Web Files Discoverer extension is available for separate download (shipped by default with CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.1) so that web technologies can be detected automatically and a corresponding Analysis Unit can be created in the CAST Management Studio:

• to onboard and analyze web technologies in new applications, you must use the HTML5/JavaScript extension, which is delivered and installed automatically with CAST AIP 8.3.x with new CAST AIP triplets and as part of an upgrade.
• for upgrades to CAST AIP ≥ 8.3.x, analysis results for existing Applications containing web technologies will be impacted as described in Removal of web technology analysis capabilities.