Welcome
Developing
Developing EGL applications
Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
EGL Language Reference
The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
Applications with user interfaces
Web transaction support in EGL
Use EGL web transactions to migrate VisualAge® Generator web transactions to EGL.
VGUIRecord stereotype

Overview
Getting started
Installing
Upgrading and migrating
Developing
- Model driven development of EGL code
- Generating source code from UML models
  You can use transformations to create source code from a UML model. First you must create a transformation parameters file and then apply those parameters to a model.
- Developing EGL applications
  Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
  - How to use this documentation
  - Additional information about EGL
    The most recent EGL documentation is in the Rational® Business Developer Information Center.
  - EGL Programmer's Guide
    The EGL Programmer's Guide covers using EGL within the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), as well as some of the common programming tasks that EGL developers perform.
  - EGL Generation Guide
    The EGL Generation Guide covers the process of converting EGL code to Java™ or COBOL source code, including the processes and the files involved. This section is intended for a developer who will generate or deploy EGL applications.
  - EGL Language Reference
    The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
    - General syntax
    - System data parts
    - User-defined data parts
    - Logic parts
    - Correspondence between a JSON string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to a JavaScript™ Object Notation (JSON) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromJSON() and serviceLib.convertToJSON()) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert JSON data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service. A failure in either function causes a RuntimeException.
    - Correspondence between an XML string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to an Extensible Markup Language (XML) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromXML and serviceLib.convertToXML) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert XML data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service.
    - EGL statements
    - EGL core system libraries and variables
    - Accessing data in EGL
      Whenever you access a data store in EGL, the data goes into a record.
    - Applications with user interfaces
      - Enumerations for user interface properties and fields
      - Common UI statements
      - Common UI properties
      - Validation properties
      - Handler part
        A handler typically includes both variables and functions. It is used for basic processing and for user interaction.
      - Rich UI programming model
      - EGL library ruiLib
        This topic describes the system functions in the ruiLib library.
      - DojoLib
        The DojoLib library includes constants and validation functions used by the EGL Dojo widgets. The library is not a system library, and its use has prerequisites.
      - DojoMobileLib
        The DojoMobileLib widget defines constants that are used by EGL Dojo mobile widgets.
      - Reference to widgets
      - EGL reports
      - Text UI
        A text UI application presents a text-based user interface similar to that of a 5250 or 3270 terminal.
      - Web transaction support in EGL
        Use EGL web transactions to migrate VisualAge® Generator web transactions to EGL.
        Segmentation in web transactions
        VGUIRecord stereotype
        VGWebTransaction stereotype
        VGWebTransaction program properties
        VGUIRecord properties
        VGUIRecord field properties
        Enumerations for web transactions
        converse considerations for web transactions
        show considerations for Web transactions
        sysVar system variable (web transaction fields)
        The sysVar system variable holds miscellaneous values that do not fit in other libraries.
    - VisualAge® Generator compatibility
    - Appendices
    - Importing product-supplied projects
      You can click a link to download the current version of Rich UI projects. The capability is useful if you deleted a project or want a clean version.
  - Rational® COBOL Runtime Guide for zSeries®
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering the IBM® Rational® COBOL Runtime.
  - Rational® Business Developer EGL Server Guide for IBM® i
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering EGL Server for IBM® i on the host.
  - Generation for VSE Feature Reference
    This reference manual provides z/VSE-specific information about developing and generating EGL programs in the VSE environment.
- Source code analysis with code review
  With code review, you can create configurations of coding rules for EGL source code. You can then run the configurations to check the source code for consistency with the rules.
- Responsive Design Support in RBD
  What is Responsive Design? Responsive design is an approach for creation of web pages that automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed. So, instead of designing multiple websites for different devices with variable screen sizes, we can design just one website that scales up or down automatically, to match the device it’s being viewed on.
Samples
Troubleshooting and support
Reference
Glossary
Using the help
Notices for IBM Rational Business Developer documentation

VGUIRecord stereotype

A Record part with the VGUIRecord stereotype is a main part and is the basis of a VGUI record variable in a VGWebTransaction program. That variable makes communication possible between the program and a specific web page. Each converse or show statement that presents the web page references a VGUI record variable.

When you save the source file for a VGUIRecord, EGL creates the following artifacts and deploys them in the web application server:

The VGUI record object is a Java™ class instance that contains the data being passed between the program and the web page.
The VGUI record bean is a Java™ bean that provides data validation and event-handling services. The UI record bean is used in these ways:
- When a JSP prepares a web page for display, the JSP accesses the VGUI record bean, which accesses the data in the VGUI record object.
- When the user provides input to the web browser, the bean validates the input either for use by business logic or (if validation failed) for subsequent redisplay. After a successful validation, the bean stores the data in the VGUI record bean, and the EGL runtime makes the data available to the program.
The web page is a JSP page that includes HTML fields and control structures based on the uiType property of the fields in the VGUIRecord part.

Characteristics of the VGUI record fields (length, primitive type) must match characteristics of web page fields. Fields in the VGUIRecord part use the uiType property to specify the type of HTML tag to create for that field: an input field, an output field, or a control button.

At run time, the VGUIRecord is represented by a UI record bean. Java™ code in the JSP file access this UI record bean and displays it on the page. When you design the JSP that presents the web page, be sure to bind fields in the web page to the equivalent structure fields in the VGUIRecord. This binding means that the JSP runtime transfers data between a given field in the page and the equivalent field in the VGUI record bean.

For more information on the relationship between JSP and web transactions, refer to the EGL Programmer's Guide.