Building Decisions

The Decisions feature enables automated text replacement in source files before they are scanned. By applying regular expression–based search-and-replace rules during preprocessing, you can standardize code patterns, ignore unwanted constructs, or you can temporarily modify code structure before analysis.

The decisions feature is available for:

• COBOL programs
• PL/I programs

How it works

1. Configuration: Define decision rules in your .dat configuration file.
2. Pattern matching: When a file is scanned, the system verifies whether any decision rules are applied to it.
3. Temporary file creation: If matches are found, a temporary file is created with the specified replacements applied (named .temp_<original filename>).
4. Scanning: The scanner processes the temporary file instead of the original file.
5. Cleanup: Temporary files are automatically deleted after scanning (configurable).

To enable the feature, add the following flag to the .dat configuration file:

OPTION_DECISIONS=1

Create a decisions section in the .dat file with one or more decision entries:

[DECISIONS]
DECISION01=<path>,filter(<file_pattern>),find_what(<regex_pattern>),replace_with(<replacement_text>)
DECISION02=<path>,filter(<file_pattern>),find_what(<regex_pattern>),replace_with(<replacement_text>)
DECISION03=<path>,filter(<file_pattern>),find_what(<regex_pattern>),replace_with(<replacement_text>)

Each decision entry consists of four components:

1. Path: Directory containing the source files
   • Example: /wca4z-understand/IBM Application Discovery Build Client CLI/projects/ProjectName/zOS Cobol/
2. Filter: File patterns to match
   • Single pattern:
     • Filter by extension (*.CBL)
     • Filter by name (ABC*.*)
     • Filter by both (A*CD.CBL)
   • Multiple patterns: filter (*.CBL | *.CBS)
     • Filter by extension (*.CBL | *.CBS)
     • Filter by name (ABC*.* | *BC.* | A*C.*)
     • Filter by both (A*CD.CBL | *BCD.CBL | ABC*.CBS)
   • All files: filter ( * )
3. Find Pattern: Regular expression to search for
   • Example: find_what (\$[BD]YNCALL\$)
   • Uses standard regex syntax
4. Replacement Text: Text to replace matched patterns
   • Example: replace_with (CALL)
   • Can be left empty to ignore the matched text entirely: replace_with()

Following options allows you to control the temporary files that are deleted after scanning:

OPTION_DEL_DECISION_INTERIM_FILE=0 # Keep temp files for debugging