Build descriptor and other build parts

You can specify build parts that help control the process that EGL uses to generate JavaScript™ and Java™ from your EGL source. Generally, you define this generation-specific information once for each type of target runtime environment that you have, and then you use the same information whenever you generate EGL source for that target runtime environment.

You specify a part called a Build Descriptor part for the generation process, which provides build descriptor options that control the process. These build descriptor options fall into a number of general categories, including the following:
Target runtime environment
This is specified by the system build descriptor option.
Location of generated output
The genProject build descriptor option provides the name of a project within the workspace to use as the location for the generated Java output. The genDirectory build descriptor option indicates a directory outside the workspace to use as the location for the generated output. The genDirectory build descriptor option is always used for generated COBOL output and can optionally be used for generated Java output.
Location for preparation phase
If you are generating Java code, usually you will use the genProject build descriptor option to generate to a project within the workspace; in which case, the preparation phase occurs in the workspace. However, if you are generating Java code that you want to prepare on a remote system, the destHost option and related options provide the name and access information (such as user ID and password) for that remote system.
Additional information to be generated
Build options can cause additional information to be created during generation. For example, when you generate a program for Java environments, setting the genProperties option creates Java runtime properties that are based on the settings in other options. These Java runtime properties are written to one of three different types of files, depending on whether you are generating to a J2EE runtime environment or not.
Additional information used at generation time
Some build descriptor options point to other build parts, which provide additional information at generation time:
  • The linkage option points to the linkage options part, which provides information on how to implement certain statements such as call, transfer, and certain kinds of file I/O statements for your target runtime environment.
  • The resourceAssociation option points to the resource associations part, which provides information on how to implement I/O statements for serial, indexed, or relative records, as well as print output.
  • The deploymentDescriptor option points to the EGL deployment descriptor, which is a separate file that provides information about how an EGL service part is exposed to other applications, or how an external service is used in an EGL application.
Generating additional parts
You can set some options to cause other parts to generate at the same time as your program. For example, the genDataTables build descriptor option indicates that you want to generate all the DataTables that are used by the generated program.
Additional validation checks
Some build descriptor options can be set to perform additional validation checks before the generation process actually creates the Java code. For instance, the validateSQLStatements option causes the generation process to check the validity of the SQL statements in your program. If you use that option, you might need to set additional build descriptor options, such as sqlID and sqlPassword, to provide information required to access your runtime database.
Additional logic included in generated code
If you generate a program for a Java environment, the j2ee option is automatically set to YES; if the j2ee build descriptor option is set to YES, the j2eeLevel build descriptor option specifies what level of J2EE you want the program to support.

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