Exploring by searching for an artifact

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After you create a workspace, you can start exploring more about your project with IBM® watsonx Code Assistant™ for Z Refactoring Assistant. Learn how to search for an artifact and check the closure that is computed by taking a specific artifact as a seed.

A seed is a technical artifact that is part of an application. You can choose a specific artifact as a seed to populate a closure graph that captures the transitive call dependencies that the given seed has on other logic modules and resources of the application. This process helps you narrow the focus to the artifacts of relevance for further exploration. The following artifact types are supported in Z Refactoring Assistant:
  • CICS® transactions
  • IMS transactions
  • Copybooks
  • Programs
  • Db2® tables
Complete the following steps to explore your project artifacts:
  1. Type an artifact name that you want to explore more in the search box. Then, you can find the search results under the search box.
    Notes:
    • You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character for a string of one or more characters when you search for an artifact name. For example, if you search with *b, the search results list the artifact names that include b and other characters, such as abc, bbc or cbc.
    • When you start typing, an Artifact type table is displayed to list all the artifacts that are identified with the project by type. You can also filter the artifacts by type to quickly locate the artifact that you want to explore further.
  2. Click the result item that you want to explore and then press Enter. This operation computes a closure graph by taking the artifact as the seed. The closure graph shows the call chain of all the relevant programs.
  3. Select one program of interest, the closure graph will highlight only the incoming and outgoing references of the program. In this way, you can narrow down the scope of the artifact and focus on the relevant programs only.
  4. View properties of the program. You can find the details, incoming references, and outgoing reference of the program from the Properties pane. Also, the dashed lines represent the data access relationship between the nodes in the graph. To check the details of the data access between the nodes, select the program or click the Action Menu icon on the upper right corner of the program node, and select View properties to find the type of the data access in the Properties pane. The type of the data access can be Create, Read, Update, Delete, or Write.
    The image shows the ata access lines and attributes.