gmStudio Release News: Tuesday, 06-July-2021

Created by Mark Juras
Last updated: Jul 06, 2021

gmBasic: Upgrade Engine

gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work includes the general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a Courier Management System. This application includes 5 VB6 Dlls coded as 300K LOC of VB6 and over 150 ASP pages containing 40K LOC or markup and over 100K LOC of client-side VBScript. This distribution, Version 40.09, includes several enhancements:

  • Improves support for rewriting client-side VBScript to JavaScript in ASP to ASP.NET translations
  • Improves support for rewriting stand-alone VBScript files as JavaScript files with the VBSTranslate command
  • Improves GenericCollections feature
  • Improves support for migrating Scripting.Dictionary in ASP codes
  • Improves performance of translation process (larger systems complete up to 20% faster)
  • Improves COM interface description files containing classes named "...Events"
  • Improves stub framework methods to throw NotImplemented exception
  • Improves processing Print statement with international characters
  • Continues work to allow more organization of runtime support framework

gmStudio: Upgrade Solution Development Environment

Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:

  • Adds support for file name filter when viewing configuration files
  • Adds means of toggling the Ignore Task Filter from the ToolBar
  • Adds support for Create Specification Codes for ASP Upgrade projects
  • Adds Refresh content operation in the Side-by-Side Viewer
  • Adds Edit file operation in the Side-by-Side Viewer
  • Adds support for reporting client-side VBScript LOC in the Source Structure Report for ASP pages
  • Adds support for running a custom tool by specifying script/TOOL:toolpath in a tasks TScript field
  • Adds ability to prune tasks from a gmProj if not found in a list of tasks to keep
  • Improves default template translation scripts
  • Improves User Command batch command line integration
  • Improves UI feedback when Rebuilding the Metalang file
  • Improves Reference Parser to handle non-standard Object= statements
  • Improves accuracy error member reported in .NET Build Log Report
  • Improves consistency of reported time stamps; all reports to use 24h format

gmAPI: a .NET API for Developing Advanced Upgrade Solutions

Powered by gmBasic, gmAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.

  • Improves support for using a custom metalanguage vb7lang.vbi during gmAPI startup
  • Updates the ASP GlobalIncludes sample script to use the gmGlobalIncludes migration utility

gmStudio Extensions

gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.

  • Improves sample UserCmd.cmd file to illustrate translation change reporting

Sample Upgrade Solutions

Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions and results were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. Learn about the samples here.

  • Improves sample batch processing scripts
  • Updates the ASP GlobalIncludes sample script to use the gmGlobalIncludes migration utility