User build Problems view

When you edit enterprise application code in Z Open Editor you get full language support provided by our language servers giving you code completion and real-time syntax errors. However, the parsers utilized in Z Open Editor can only identify problems that a compiler can detect. As a result, sometimes it is necessary to actually build the program and review the compiler output, which includes warnings that the editor was not able to produce.

Z Open Editor provides an integration with IBM Dependency-Based Build called user build. You can run a build of a program directly from inside Z Open Editor via the context menu. When integrated with Zowe Explorer, the program will be uploaded to USS and then built with Dependency-Based Build. Until now the build would complete by downloading the build log files into the local development workspace. You would have to review the log file by opening it in the editor and scrolling through it.

If you enable Z Open Editor's advanced capabilities, Dependency-Based Build log files will now be parsed by Z Open Editor and presented as errors and warnings in the regular VS Code Problems view. You can click entries in the Problems view to directly navigate to the line in the code for which the problem was reported. These error will be shown next to regular Z Open Editor errors side-by-side, but you can distinguish them by the compiler error number displayed next to them.

The Problems view can be cleared manually via a right-click on any message or automatically when you rerun a build.

The screenshot above shows an example of the Problems view reporting a warning about a RECORD IS VARYING statement not matching the required range. The problem could only be found by building the program. CCombining parse with user build errors and warnings gives developers new ways to determine problems they could not have before.