Genero Archive

One of the characteristics of our community is that having mostly come from Informix-4gl backgrounds, they have practises that were determined by what Informix provided many years ago.  In some cases, Informix did not dictate something and so Informix-4gl users developed their own way of doing things.  These are of course all different.

One of those areas was how finished applications were bundled and deployed onto production servers.  You would have developed your own procedures  for figuring out what files to bundle up and ship to your customers, and then how to install it.  No two Informix-4gl developers would have the same set of procedures.

Within the Genero stack we have endeavoured to provide a more complete ecosystem for you to build, and deploy applications.  This includes through Genero Application Server, you have a number of ways to deploy applications …

• use the Deployment App within Genero Identity Provider
• use the gasadmin gar command can be used to deploy and enable applications
• use the DeployGar tool to manage applications on local and remove servers.

What these have in common is all use a Genero Archive.  A Genero Archive is a .zip compressed file that contains the required files and resources that make up one or more Genero applications.

To create a Genero Archive, you use the fglgar command, in particular the “fglgar gar” command  and options.   Based on the arguments this will create a .gar file that is a zip compressed file containing 42r, 42m, 42f, .xcf and other resources such as images, .4ad, .4st etc.  I won’t go into the detail but a key component is a MANIFEST file that lists what is to be included in the Genero Archive.    A Genero Archive can contain one or more Genero programs.  This .gar file is then shipped and deployed onto the destination server where it is uncompressed and the .xcf files placed to reference the deployed applications.

Genero Studio has the ability to create Genero Archives as well.  Follow from here in the documentation.  Genero Studio uses the Package node and if you peek at Project->Edit Package Rules, you will see that a .gar Genero Archive file is the resulting output.

There is no requirement for you to use a Genero Archive or any of our deployment methods.  However if you are ever reviewing your deploying and installing procedures, consider the use of Genero Archive and our deployment methods.