Source Code missing in Cincom VIsualWorks 7.9.1 in Windows 8

Question

I am running Cincom VisualWorks version 7.9.1 in Windows 8. When I open the class browser and view a library class, it fails to display the source, instead displaying an error comment like this:

    "   ***This is decompiled code.*** 
    This may reflect a problem with the configuration of your image and its sources and changes files. 
    Please refer to the documentation and the settings tool for help in setting up the proper source 
    code files."

I have confirmed that the home path is pointing to the correct directory. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

The answer to this question depends on what code you're looking at. In VisualWorks, source code can be stored in a number of different places. For classes that are present in a clean VisualWorks image with no other code loaded, the source is in a file called visual.sou found in the image directory of the installation directory. As you mentioned, you need to make sure the home path is pointing to the correct directory. It doesn't point at the image directory itself but the directory above - for example, it would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Cincom\vw7.9.1 not C:\Program Files (x86)\Cincom\vw7.9.1\image.

For parcels you loaded, the source code is in a .pst file associated with the parcel. For any code you load from Store or write yourself, the source is in a .cha file in the same directory as your .im file and with the same name. If your image is visual.im then your code is stored in visual.cha.

You need to be very careful about the versions of the files you use. The visual.im file is tightly coupled to the visual.sou file and contains offsets into the .sou file. If you're using a visual.im from another version of VisualWorks, those offsets into the .sou file may not be correct and may produce this problem.

I hope this helps.