What To Think of This? - A Tester's Nightmare

The other day I had the task to customize the Import Budget from Excel and Export Budget to Excel batch jobs. To incorporate changes made in Financial Management as part of a major add-on we are building. Although the add-on is directly implemented for RTC, I decided to first get the batch job working on Classic as it would enable me to easily debug and stay as close as possible to standard code. Unexpectedly I got the whole thing working very easily, so I set off in a very good mood for RTC.

• Export Budget to Excel
  No problema
• Import Budget from Excel
  Oops ... error

Error

Of course I had clicked the error away before I could have read it well, probably thinking that I had done something wrong. So another run and ... error:

Typically a programmed error and apparently now, on RTC, code was touched that wasn't on Classic.

Help, I need a debugger!

Up till now I had managed to circumvent debugging RTC using Visual Studio. But clearly from now on no way to get around it, unless I would drop the whole customization task on someone else's desk. Well ... no option, really. And, honestly, if someone in our team should pick up learning to debug RTC I think all fingers would point at me anyway.

VS Debugger

So I roamed around looking for info on how-to. And it showed not that difficult at all. Well, OK, I am not a fluent C# reader, but I seem to manage; not in the least through the original C/AL code lines having been inserted in the .cs files as comments.

Equipped with this knowledge and VS set up right I went off going through the code step by step, meanwhile

• Learning to understand both C# and the code as such
• Facing IF … THEN … ELSE constructions where in C/AL  this was CASE statement (so more steps!)

But all to no avail.

Every time the code execution stopped at the same error. Out-commenting the error throwing code made the import batch job stop at other code throwing errors; and another, and .... All code not touched in Classic Client.

Because of other tasks planned I had to let loose of the issue for a couple days, returning to it last Monday in high spirits.

Started RTC and opened the budget page to execute the import again.

%&!^$&!#)(*$!$&!#_*

ERROR AGAIN!

Patience, Luc. Was that my guardian angle?

OK, I will.

So I went into a more detailed analysis mode with less data in the Excel file and I analyzed the import in all aspects seeing the code translate the Excel structure into a set of records. Understanding exactly what the code was doing. And of course in Classic Client as the batch was working fine there.

RTC, here I come. Lucky Luc! (I truly was hoping)

Set up VS. Started RTC. Ran the process as before. Error again.

So now I wanted to watch the ExcelBuf variable and see whether the Excel data were transfered right into NAV records. It showed what I expected. Same details as I had seen on Classic Client.

And as all Excel cells where copied to NAV I hit F5 to let the process continue to the end without stepping through the cod,e awaiting the well known error. Waiting ... progress indicator continued ... waiting ...

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Well, let's click Yes.

?!?!?!?!?!??!?

A TESTERS NIGHTMARE!

Just running the debugger in a somewhat different mode solved the issue. Well, at least gave the desired behavior.

Now I did rerun the process a couple of times and the result was OK every time. Wonder what will/can happen at customers once you would go live with this.

When they call because of an issue should we suggest to turn on VS debugger, select a variable to watch and run it again. Problem solved!

Hey, you, C# experts! You, VS wizards. Any idea why this is happening like this? And .. can I trust NAV (RTC) to run well from now on?