Today, as part of the Visual Studio 2010 launch, Microsoft published a video of my coworker, Esteban Brenes, doing a brief demo of the latest beta of the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion 4.0. In this video, version 4.0 of the VBUC is used to generate code that works correctly with Visual Studio 2010. This is part of the VSIP Partners CAN DO! series of videos, which can be seen in this link.
Watch the video: VSIP Partners CAN DO! | ArtinSoft Visual Basic Upgrade Companion
We are very happy to announce the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion 4.0 Beta. You can now download a trial from the Trial Request page. While we complete beta testing, we’ll have both version 3.0 (current release version) and the 4.0 Beta available for download. If you have the chance, we would really appreciate it if you could download the beta, and send us any feedback either through ArtinSoft’s regular support email (support@artinsoft.com) or through my blog Contact Form.
This new version contains a large number of improvements over version 3.0, including:
- Increased productivity for migration projects, with features such as improved conversion of ByRef/ByVal parameters (specially when working with Windows APIs), TypeName/TypeOf support, improved default property conversion, generate code to explicitly release COM objects when required, and hundreds of smaller enhancements and bug fixes that greatly improve the conversion of VB6.0 code.
- Improved the user experience by adding localization/internationalization for German and Japanese and completely redesigned the installation and license process. Installing a license is now a straightforward process (no more copying files!!), and it is now possible to install and execute the VBUC on both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, as well as 32-bit Windows XP. The installation requirements were also greatly simplified, so you don’t need Visual Studio installed to install the VBUC (though it is still recommended).
You can now also select the target version of Visual Studio to generate the appropriate Solution file (*.sln). The VBUC can generate Visual Studio Solutions for version 2005, 2008 and 2010.
- Enhanced Grid migration, by mapping the Microsoft Flexgrid and APEX/ComponentOne TrueDBGrid to a grid that extends the native .NET DataGridView. It will no longer be required to purchase a third-party grid solution when moving from these grid to .NET if you wish to move to 100% native .NET code without using COM Interop.
- Improved assessment capabilities, by improving the accuracy of the VBUC Assessment Mode and making additional changes so members without specific mappings are tagged with an EWIs – in the past only members that were explicitly tagged as “Not Mapped” had an EWI.
You can read more details on the new features of version 4.0 in this page: What’s new in VBUC 4.0? Make sure you try out these new features by downloading a trial.
Visual Basic Upgrade Companion 4.0 User Interface. You can now select the target version of Visual Studio,
and also note the license icon at the bottom of the window.
One very common requirement for migration projects is to adapt certain error handling patterns used in a customer’s Visual Basic 6.0 code to the structured error handling provided by .NET, cleaning up the code, improving its maintainability, and, whenever possible, complying with .NET best practices.
The VBUC already converts several commonly used error handling patterns, such as the ones described in this old post. There are, however, situations where the VBUC is not able to recognize a pattern. these usually involve Goto statements, On Error Resume Next, Resume Next or some other construct usually associated with “spaghetti code”. When one of these patterns is encountered, the VBUC does a very basic transformation and generates an EWI so it can be cleaned up through manual intervention later on, such as in the following example:
|
Visual Basic 6.0 Code |
.NET Code |
Private Function <NAME>(<PARAMS>) As <TYPE>
Const MethodName As String = "<NAME>"
On Error GoTo ErrorLabel
<STATEMENTS 1>
On Error GoTo <LABEL>
<STATEMENTS 2>
CleanUp:
<STATEMENTS 3>
Exit Function
<LABEL>:
<STATEMENTS 4>
LogError(MethodName)
Err.Raise 16, , MethodName
ErrorLabel:
<STATEMENTS 5>
LogError(MethodName)
Err.Raise Err.Number, , MethodName
End Function
|
private <TYPE> <NAME>()
{
const string MethodName = "<NAME>";
//UPGRADE_TODO: (1065)
Error handling statement
(On Error Goto) could not be converted.
More Information:
http://www.vbtonet.com/ewis/ewi1065.aspx
NotUpgradedHelper.NotifyNotUpgradedElement(
"On Error Goto Label (ErrorLabel)");
<STATEMENTS 1>
try
{
<STATEMENTS 2>
<STATEMENTS 3>
return result;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
<STATEMENTS 4>
LogError(MethodName);
throw new System.Exception(
((int) 16).ToString() +
", " + String.Empty +
", " + MethodName);
ErrorLabel:
<STATEMENTS 5>
//UPGRADE_WARNING: (2081)
Err.Number has a new behavior.
More Information:
http://www.vbtonet.com/ewis/ewi2081.aspx
LogError(MethodName);
throw new System.Exception(
Information.Err().Number.ToString() +
", " + String.Empty +
", " + MethodName);
return result;
}
} |
Most of the time it is possible to generate a solution that will correctly convert the error handling pattern, maintaining functional equivalence and meeting any additional coding guidelines from our customers. For the previous example, The VBUC can be customized so the generated code looks as follows:
try
{
try
{
<STATEMENTS 1>
}
catch (Exception ex){
<STATEMENTS 5>
throw;
}
try
{
<STATEMENTS 2>
}
catch (Exception <LABEL>Ex)
{
<STATEMENTS 4>
<LABEL>Ex.Data.Add("ERROR",16);
throw;
}
}
finally
{
<STATEMENTS 3>
}
This example makes some assumptions on the nature of the code and on the intention of the original VB6.0 developer, in particular:
- Errors raised by <STATEMENTS 1> should be handled by <STATEMENTS 5>
- Errors raised by <STATEMENTS 2> should be handled by <STATEMENTS 4>
- <STATEMENTS 3> is cleanup code that should always be executed
- The Exception needs to be thrown again without loosing any information
This is just an example, but the intention is to show what type of customizations can be done. The VBUC transformation engine is very powerful, and, as long as a pattern can be identified, can help you automate the solution to most VB6.0 problems.
Next Monday, August 17, I will be presenting a Webinar along with Microsoft for the Latin America region on how you can use several options to get your VB6.0 applications to run on Windows 7 AND get the Windows 7 logo. The webinar will be in Spanish, and covers the business reasons for the migration, the benefits of using in the .NET Framework, alternatives, and information (+demo) of the VBUC.
Here’s the link so you can register for the Webinar:
Actualiza tus apliaciones y consigue el logo de Windows 7
Fecha: 17 de agosto 05:00 p.m. Ciudad de México
Register for the Webinar
One question commonly asked by our customers is how both duplicate (same file copied in several projects) and shared files (one copy of the file referenced from multiple projects) are counted. If you create a migration solution using the VBUC, it counts the lines of code in a project (Lines column):
This number displayed in the VBUC includes all the lines of code from files referenced in the *.vbp project. This means that it counts shared files and duplicate files each time they appear. This may increase the final amount of lines of code of the total solution. If you do need to find out the number of lines of code counting these files once, we offer you two options:
The first one is to download and run our new Visual Basic 6.0 and ASP Assessment Tool. This brand-new assessment tool considers both Shared and Duplicate files and counts both accordingly in separate columns. As shown in the screenshot below, the Assessment Tool identifies “Potential Duplicates”, which are files that have the same name and the same amount of effective (code + design) lines of code. In practice, they are normally the same file copied over several projects. You should note, however, that there may be small changes that keep the same amount of code (assignments, calls to different functions, etc), so there is no guarantee they are exactly the same. FYI, this was done to speed up the analysis process. In the future we will add additional heuristics to eliminate the possibility of false positives.
The second option is to use the same VBUC, but run a detailed analysis using the “Assessment” option. This can be executed from the main menu by selecting Upgrade->Assessment:
This is a more exhaustive assessment than the one executed by the VB6.0/ASP Assessment Tool, and takes much longer to execute. This assessment will not create an HTML report (like the VB6.0/ASP Assessment Tool), but you can open the detailed line count report produced (Assessment_LOC_Report.xml) using MS Excel 2003 or higher.
When either testing the trial version of the VBUC or actually running the migration tool on your project, there are a few things that you should check to ensure the best possible conversion. These are:
- Project root: Make sure all projects are stored under a one “root” common directory. The VBUC migrates all Visual Basic 6.0 projects (*.vbp) found in a directory structure, including subdirectories, from one common root. You can read more information about setting up the folder structure in the VBUC Quick Start Guide.
- Third-party Components: The VBUC requires that all third party components are correctly registered. Also, very important, ensure you correctly install all licenses for the components. Not including these licenses will not allow the VBUC to load and identify the PMEs (Properties, Methods and Events) and correctly either apply the necessary maps or generate the corresponding COM Interop wrappers.
- Compile all projects: Make sure all projects compile correctly and that all the references between the output (EXE/DLL/OCX) of a project and the referenced component in another project match up. This will allow the VBUC pick up the references automatically, reducing the amount of migration warnings and thus minimize the work required to set up the migration solution. The VBUC Quick Start Guide contains additional details on the importance of this step.
This is a very simple configuration option that can really help you speed up the process of reviewing all migration EWIs (Errors, Warnings and Issues) when working with migrated code. In Visual Studio, you can use the Task List panel to keep track of a list of items (tasks) you need to go through. This Task List can be configured to show migration EWIs, as shown in the following screenshot:
For this to work, in the Visual Studio IDE, select Tools->Options from the main menu. In the Options window, navigate to Environment->Task List. Here, you’ll need to add the four types of EWIs inserted by the VBUC, along with their priority:
- UPGRADE_ISSUE: Issues appear when there is some migrated code that is very likely to cause a compilation error. My recommendation is that you add it with Normal priority
- UPGRADE_NOTE: Notes are basically information messages. For example, if the VBUC detects dead code, it will comment it out and add an UPGRADE_NOTE comment to make sure the developer understand why it was removed. This can be added as Low priority, since they very rarely require manual intervention after the migration.
- UPGRADE_TODO: Partially upgraded code. These EWIs should be added as high priority, since they indicate the developer needs to perform some additional work to complete the migration.
- UPGRADE_WARNING: Warnings appear when there is a difference in behavior between the VB6 code and its .NET equivalent. The solution provided normally works, but there are some scenarios where additional manual intervention may be required (most likely from runtime errors). I normally add them to the Task List as Normal priority.
With this configuration, you can very easily and quickly browse through all the EWIs in a file, and determine which ones actually require you to perform some manual work, and which ones can be either removed because the line they are tagging will work, or if their verification will be deferred until functional testing takes place.
You can read more about VBUC’s Errors, Warnings and Issues here, and about Visual Studio’s Task List at this link.
A couple of days ago we made available the final release candidate for version 3.0 of both the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion Enterprise Edition and Developer Edition. You can now directly download a trial of the VBUC Developer Edition on the trial download page, or request a trial of the Enterprise Edition on this page.
I need to mention an obligatory disclaimer saying this is the final Release Candidate, so, unless we find something at the last minute, it should be the same version officially released within a week or so. We need your help to verify we won’t find anything by downloading it and trying it out. :)
I already covered some of the features of this version on a previous post. There was significant improvements in several areas from version 2.2, which should help you achieve even greater productivity on your migration projects.
As I blogged before, the release of the VB Upgrade Companion v3.0 is due within the next few weeks. In this version we concentrated on three major areas:
- Automation: We analyzed the data from several million lines of code to determine the most common causes of manual intervention, and, by making some strategic changes to the way the code is generated, managed to reduce the amount of both EWIs (Error, Warning and Information messages) and compilation errors significantly on large (>1 million Lines of Code), complex applications. Also, depending on the VB6 features used, the VBUC now automates the migration of even more smaller applications and components completely!
- New Features: The VBUC v3.0 also contains additional features, such as the migration of the IsMissing statement and increased support for additional third party components. We are also integrating the VBUC with brand new online documentation resources that should help you as you perform the migration!
- Code Quality: The Visual Basic Upgrade Companion always tries to generate high-quality code that looks as if it was originally written in .NET. This increases the maintainability of the migrated application, and allows developers joining the project at a later date to very quickly start working on the codebase. Because of the great differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and VB.NET/C#, however, achieving this goal is not always possible. For this release we continued increasing the quality of the migrated code, including minor refactorings to control structures, and adding things like support for translating additional error handling statements to try/catch statements.
All of these was supported by some significant changes we did under the hood, which should make it easier to add new features in the future (including customer-specific customizations) and reduced the memory footprint significantly, while increasing migration speed. Watch this space for more details as the release date approaches!
We are currently wrapping up all development effort to focus on the final testing and stabilization of the next version of the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion, both Enterprise and Developer Editions, version 3.0. For this version we focused more on architecture improvements, preparing the code base for more significant upgrades in the future. We still we managed to add some great features such as:
- Enhanced resolution of default properties: By both improving the typing engine of the VBUC and generating additional code for runtime resolution of default properties, we were able to reduce the total amount of EWIs present in the code by 30%!
- Improved support for API Calls: Most API calls should now work correctly. There are still a couple of issues, but they should be sorted out by the final release
- IsMissing migration: We now correctly support the migration of the IsMissing statement.
- Enhanced support for the migration of common controls, such as Imagelist, Listview, Statusbar, Toolbar and Treeview, to native .NET components. We now correctly convert most functionality of these controls to .NET
- A greatly enhanced Assessment Mode to better estimate the effort required to perform a migration project
- Significant performance improvements and memory footprint
- Over 150 code generation improvements based on feedback from projects we’ve done, our clients and partners
We are currently conducting a limited Beta program for the VBUC Developer Edition v3.0. If you are interested in participating, drop me a line and I’ll get back to you with further instructions.
Edit: The upcoming version of the VBUC will be version 3.0 - this release represents a leap in the level of automation and additional features we managed to squeeze in, and thus deserved a new major version number. I will post additional details on the different features as the final release date approaches.