XTRACE Version 2.4
In late 1998, BankNet completed development of and announced the availability of Version 2.4 of XTRACE. XTRACE is a symbolic testing and debugging tool for the OS/390 (MVS) platform. It supports source level execution tracing of S/390 Assembler and COBOL programs. The BankNet Software Products Development Team maintains a separate Website which is dedicated to this product.





Some of the basic XTRACE capabilities are:

  • Support for unlimited number of breakpoints
  • History of executed statements allowing reverse logic tracing
  • Automatic display of variables referenced by current program statement
  • Foreign address space data display and update
  • Scripting language for automated testing and customization
  • Information displayed in full-screen, sizable, movable windows
  • Run program until a condition is satisfied (eg. run until a variable changes value)
  • Point-and-shoot cursor-sensitive operations
  • Logic path coverage analysis
  • Machine language (non-symbolic, reverse assembly) tracing of object code in any language


COBOL Support
Xtrace displays your COBOL source program as you trace its execution statement by statement. The statement about to execute is highlighted in the "source" window. Two "data" windows appear above the source window in which the values of the variables referenced by the current statement are displayed. This lets you see the two critical aspects of your program's execution: the logic flow, and the data referenced by the logic.





Just a few of Xtrace's COBOL features are:

  • Support for unlimited number of breakpoints
  • History of executed logic allowing reverse logic tracing
  • Symbolic display of variables -- contents of Data Division can be displayed in scrollable "Data" window. Values can be changed simply by overtyping in this window.

  • Run program until a condition is satisfied (eg. run until a variable changes value)
  • Point-and-shoot cursor-sensitive operations
  • Path coverage analysis


Assembler Support
XTRACE supports a dazzling array of features for the S/390 assembler programmer. Like COBOL, the program listing is shown, in an "asource" window, with the current instruction highlighed. The contents of storage can be displayed symbolically -- in accordance with DC and DS declarations. Structured data mapped by DSECTs can be displayed (and updated) in the format in which elements are defined. The contents of registers are displayed as execution is traced. And, like COBOL, the contents of storage referenced by the highlighted statement are automatically displayed.

Just a few of Xtrace's Assembler features are:

  • Support for unlimited number of breakpoints
  • History of executed logic allowing reverse logic tracing
  • Run program until a condition is satisfied (eg. run until storage or a register changes value or is equal to a specified value)
  • Point-and-shoot cursor-sensitive operations
  • Pathlength analysis -- count how many instruction are executed in a logic path


Use of XTRACE at BankNet
At BankNet, Xtrace is used extensively by our application developers as well as by our software products developers. We are constantly looking for ways to improve Xtrace and, therefore, improve our own productivity. We pass these improvement on to our licensed customers.