CROSSWAY: 4GL CODE ANALYSIS TOOL
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE IMPACT OF YOUR PROGRESS 4GL CODE?
Crossway is a custom-built 4GL code analysis tool designed specifically for Progress OpenEdge applications.
A visual representation of how your code changes affect and spread throughout your entire application would be invaluable. Crossway gathers cross-reference information from a selected suite of files within your 4GL code and also databases structure and produces several graphical outputs that are easy to understand, both technically and functionally.
This visualization is crucial, especially when your application’s business model demands strict control over released changes.
HOW IT WORKS?
How many of you have faced critical situations due to incomplete test coverage leading to malfunctions or lack of transparency on which functionalities will be impacted by your changes?
How about understanding deep and complex OOP architectures, which are difficult to follow? Or table relationships that need to be considered before writing your code? Or determining the correct package for a new ABL class or interface?
One more: reading the code is fun indeed, but a picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?
Crossway’s purpose is to provide solutions for all these situations above through the means of visual diagrams, which can significantly ease your development and testing process.
Knowing the impact of your code changes upfront allows the testing team to accurately estimate the effort required for thorough testing.
Crossway—4GLCode Analysis Tool supports several visual representations for the technical and functional impact of any code change, large or small, reducing the risk of releasing inconsistent functionality: Impact Diagram, Sequence Diagram, Table Relations Diagram, Package Model Diagram, Inherits and Implements Diagrams.
CROSSWAY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How can I use Crossway within my Progress OpenEdge development workspace?
Using Crossway is simple. Install the provided Crossway plugin zip file into Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge. To see the generated diagrams, you also need to install one or both visualization tools, such as Wayfare’s Crossway and Draw.io executable. After installation, a few minor configuration steps are all it takes to start analyzing your application. Once set up, you can generate diagrams and insights directly from your workspace.
What types of diagrams does Crossway generate?
Currently, Crossway provides three main types of diagrams to help you understand your application architecture:
- Impact diagrams reflect complex relationships between project files and reveal how changes to one file or class might affect other connected files, making it easier to analyze dependencies and potential side effects like circular dependencies.
- Inherits diagrams show class inheritance relationships, visualizing parent–child hierarchies in your code.
- Implements diagrams identify where classes use common methods, properties, or structures defined by interfaces, highlighting implementation dependencies.
These diagrams give you both a high-level and a detailed perspective on how your Progress OpenEdge application is organized.
Does Crossway require full source code access?
Crossway can be configured to take into account all or parts of the ABL source code in order to perform its analysis. It works by analyzing XREF output generated by its internal compilation of source code using OpenEdge 12.8.
Is Crossway suitable for legacy OpenEdge systems?
Yes, Crossway supports analysis of legacy-style ABL code as well (e.g., procedural patterns) — making it conceptually suited to work both with legacy OpenEdge systems and the latest OpenEdge versions.
However, Crossway requires the user to ensure the application code can be compiled with OpenEdge 12.8. This means that Crossway does not work with pre-compiled r-code from older runtimes or source code that cannot be compiled under 12.8 due to syntax incompatibilities.
Is Crossway easy to use for non-developers, such as testers or analysts?
Yes — Crossway is originally designed to be used mostly by OpenEdge developers through the Developer Studio IDE, but the generated diagrams can be also ported out to other systems and machines and they can become accessible to other engineers (e.g. testers and business analysts, software architects) that need visibility into how project files interact with each other and how changes can affect an OpenEdge application.
The tool presents complex or simple code relationships through visual diagrams that are easy to configure, filter, navigate, and understand—even without deep ABL knowledge. These diagrams help non-developers:
- Identify which modules are impacted by a change.
- Understand dependencies between files and database tables.
- Plan test coverage based on actual code change dependencies.
- Reduce guesswork when assessing risk or validating requirements.
No need to read source code—a picture shows the full impact.
What file types and extensions are supported?
Crossway lets you configure which file types to include in the analysis. By default, it supports standard Progress OpenEdge source files such as .i, .p, .cls, and .w. You can adjust the supported extensions in the configuration to match your project’s needs.
SEE HOW CROSSWAY WORKS.
Contact our team today and learn more about how Crossway analyzes the impact of your Progress 4GL code.
Get a free Demo!
