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What Does M+R Include?

M+R has the necessary features for merging concurrent developments and reconciling the conflicting changes, such as

  • Project management

  • Library support

  • Comparison utility

  • Batch compare, merge, and export

  • Version Browser

  • Version Editor

  • Reconciliation Auditor

Project Management

A large consolidation project like a Year 2000 compliance or Vendor Code reconciliation project usually involves a team of programmers and covers versions of several libraries such as source code and copybooks. To control the reconciliation process, the team leader can set up project-wide profile options and shared working and version data sets. Then the team leader can assign different tasks to the team members and monitor the progress online as well as through status reports.

Library Support

ChangeMan M+R supports any combination of sequential (SEQ) and PDS files, CA Panvalet and CA Librarian libraries, and ChangeMan ZMF applications and packages.

Comparison Utility

M+R uses Comparex®, The Intelligent Comparison Utility, as the underlying technology to compare versions.

Batch Compare, Merge, and Export

When consolidating entire libraries, the task of comparing member version, parsing and expanding copybooks and JCL procedures, doing the symbolic substitution, and merging the differences becomes very time and resource consuming. M+R can perform it in batch and present you with the merged versions for browsing and editing. Moreover, M+R can export some members in batch. For example, if a member exists in only one version library, or if all its versions are equal, there is no need for reconciliation—such a member can be auto-exported, thus reducing your workload.

Version Browser

The M+R Version Browser includes features to help you investigate and understand the differences between the versions.

Different views or contexts for browsing and editing the differences are generated with single commands.

By coloring and graphically marking the lines, M+R lets you see whether a base record has been deleted, replaced, or cut and by which derivative. You can also view the replacing, pasted, and inserted code lines, including the derivative they originated from.

Version Editor

When reconciling different versions with M+R, you can use primary and edit line commands that have the look and feel of ISPF/PDF Edit commands.

These commands include the following:

  • Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste from one context to another.

  • Delete and Undelete.

  • Copy and Move.

  • Insert, Repeat, and Overtype.

  • Exclude and Reset.

  • Find and Repeat Find ((R)Find).

  • Change and Repeat Change ((R)Change).

  • Locate next base code line and locate a base code line by its relative number.

  • Show moved block of records.

Reconciliation Auditor

M+R offers many options that support a comprehensive reconciliation auditing. These options follow.

Batch Version Difference Report

When up to 8 versions of a library are merged in batch mode, the user can request a detailed Merge report for each member illustrating the differences between the versions. Each block of changes is surrounded by two blocks of common code lines in a fade-in/fade-out fashion. These reports mark the starting point of the library consolidation.

Insertion of Team/Individual Banners

The history of the reconciliation of each member can be recorded at a team, user, member, and line level. The project manager can create a project banner file formatted as comments and include it as one of the derivatives. Each team member can create an individual banner file and include it as an additional derivative. The banner is a sequential data set or a member of a library. Although these banners are invisible to the user, M+R will include them, on export, on the top of each consolidated member to record its reconciliation history.

Insertion of Reconciliation Statistics

Reconciliation statistics concerning member attributes can be exported as comments. Such attributes include:

  • Member name.

  • Number of code lines in each member version.

  • Number of conflicts and single changes.

  • User ID of the programmer who has merged the member versions.

  • This analysis table records the reconciliation history at a user level and member level.

Insertion of Line Signature

For reconciliation auditing, M+R can trace the origin of each code line in the exported consolidated version. In the line sequence number area (positions 73 to 80), a line signature appears, formatted to include the IDs of all versions that have the same line in that place. The base records that are common across all versions have their original sequence numbers as line signatures.

Intelligent Line Renumbering

Another way of tracing the reconciliation effort is the renumbering that M+R performs on export, at the user’s request. M+R supports both standard and COBOL sequence numbers, and follows the ISPF sequence numbering rules. The code lines from the base version are numbered with their original sequence numbers. The code lines from the derivative versions and the user-inserted and overtyped code lines have numbers that are between the numbers of the two surrounding base code lines. When such numbers are exhausted (due to too many inserts), the entire consolidated version is renumbered on export.