The Conversion Tool

The converter tool has been designed to help the developer work through the conversion process by automating some of the pre and post conversion tasks. The tool has been designed so that as conversion tasks are identified, a corresponding code module can be added to deal with it, this is also true for customizable tasks that the developer may want to perform during the conversion process.

The converter tool consists of an Omnis 7^3 library (O7analyse.lbr) and an Omnis Studio library (O$Converter.lbs). The Omnis 7 library performs predefined pre conversion tasks on the library writing its findings to an Omnis datafile. The name of the datafile is derived from the library name. For example if the OMNIS 7^3 library to be converted was called "Test.lbr" then the datafile would be named "O7A_TEST.df1".

The library to be converted is then opened in Omnis Studio and the in built automatic core conversion process runs. The newly converted library is then run through the O$Converter, which performs its post conversion tasks using information from the datafile.

Because Omnis offers such a rich programming environment, developers can write code in many different styles to perform the same task, both the OMNIS 7^3 analyzer and the OMNIS Studio converter tool provide for the addition of modules to address specific application issues, programming styles and conventions.

For example, the developer may wish to add a module to the analyzer that will store particular information which is lost during the automatic conversion process, for use by a Studio converter module in post conversion processing.

For further information on the task modules included with the tool see Task Modules Included with the Tool.