Prism for C/AL

Developer productivity for NAV

Prism for C/AL is our analysis tool and code browser for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Solution overview

Rich code browsing experience

Semantic search

Solution overview

Flexible options for opening a solution

Once you have installed Prism for C/AL, all you need to browse and analyse a solution is text objects. Prism offers a wide range of options for opening a solution:

Open File Store

Opens a single .txt file exported with C/SIDE.

Open Mirror Store

Opens a store mirrored by Prism from a NAV server.

Prism for C/AL: Open unstructured directory

Open Directory Store

Opens any directory of NAV objects exported as text (e.g. a version control workspace.)

Open Prism Store

Opens a directory of NAV text objects structured in Prism's own layout.

Mirror your solutions to save time

Configure Prism mirrors for your solutions, so you are ready to analyze your code at any time.

Prism for C/AL can mirror code on a server

Continuously mirrors changes in server's objects.
Automatic handling of unlicensed objects.
Navigate to object in C/SIDE.
Visual clue when objects have changed since opening a mirror.
Reload mirror when objects have changed.

Find objects and their dependencies

Quickly locate objects with flexible object filtering. Initiate object level functionality or view an object's inbound and outbound dependencies to gain a better understanding of the objects role.

Prism for C/AL object index — Filter objects by name, number, number ranges or combine with '|', Click to view object. Right-click to invoke object level functionality.

Prism for C/AL Using and Used By — Immediate overview of which objects the current object is *used by* and which objects the current object is *using*. Trailing letters indicate type of usage. Right-click to drill into actual dependencies.

What are you looking for?

Locate code of interest directly by searching procedures and fields by their name. Or find a specific line of code. If you are given an error message by a customer, use text constant search to find where the error originates.

Prism for C/AL: search procedures including event subscribers by name — Search procedure with names that include *xml*.

Prism for C/AL: search fields by name — Search fields with names maching pattern *desc*2*, e.g. *Description 2*

Prism for C/AL: Search code lines — Search code lines matching pattern *SETRANGE*Sell-to Customer No.*

Prism for C/AL: Search text constants — Search text constants for error message *You cannot create this type of document when Vendor 12345 is blocked with type Payment*.

Rich code browsing experience

View it all—at a glance!

Structure, colours, tooltips and links speed up code reading. Prism shows all the code—immediately. No need to open multiple windows to view field triggers or table relation details. Everything is linked, so you can navigate back and forth. Declaration identifiers have context menus (e.g. "Find usages") and identifiers that reference a declaration have rich tooltips and are linked to the declaration.

Prism for C/AL: Structured object view, here a page action with a trigger — Tree-structured code view. Here a page action with a trigger. Click identifiers to navigate.

Prism for C/AL: View triggers, properties etc directly — Table field with table relation and trigger. Right-click field identifier to *Find Usages*.

Find your way in the current object

Outlines the current object for overview and navigation purposes. Use wildcard filter to restrict to what you are looking for.

Prism for C/AL: Object outline — Object outline filtered to `60..80|amountlcy`

Outlines current object contents.
Filter by name or number (supports wild-cards, number ranges and |.)
For fields, trailing 𝑓 indicates flow field.
Click to navigate.
Right-click to find usages.
Local procedures are grey.

Browse and analyse in Prism—edit in C/SIDE

Open objects in C/SIDE directly from Prism for C/AL for any objects in a mirror store. This enables a view-in-Prism-edit-in-C/SIDE way of working.

Prism for C/AL: Open and design object in C/SIDE — Open object in C/SIDE

Available for mirror stores.
(Optional) In Prism, copy a line of code.
In Prism, click Design Object.
(Optional) In C/SIDE, search for the line of code.
In C/SIDE, edit and save the object.
In Prism, reload the store to reflect changes.

Semantic search

Find usages to gain detailed insight

Find usages of declarations (objects, procedures, fields, keys, variables etc) across your whole solution. Save time with filters: Find out where a field is assigned a value.

Prism for C/AL: find usages — Click a result to navigate. Invoke new *find usages* directly from the usages window.

Prism for C/AL: Find usages filter — Filter to where the field is assigned a value.

How did we get this data into the database?

Find system function usages allows you to quickly answer questions like the one above. Select which instance methods you search for. For table functions like Insert, save time by narrowing the result to non-temporary records.

Prism for C/AL: Invoke find system function usages — 1. Invoke function from e.g. object index

Prism for C/AL: Select system functions to find usages of — 2. Select instance method(s) to search for

Prism for C/AL: Filter system function usages results to e.g. only show non-temporary usages — 3. Filter result to non-temporary, if required

Find events fit for your purpose

Good practice when developing for NAV 2016+ is to subscribe to existing business and integration events instead of changing code directly in the base application. Use Procedure search to find events and use Find usages make sure you understand exactly when and how the event is raised.

Prism for C/AL: Search events by name — Search for events where name matches `*general*`.

Prism for C/AL: Event usages (where raised and where subscribed) — Usages of event `OnGeneralJournalBatchBalanced`: raised once and subscribed once.

Explore your data model visually

Understanding the data model is crucial for efficient C/AL development. With approximately 1200 tables in Microsoft's base application alone, presenting the full data model in one diagram in not an option. Instead, Prism for C/AL lets you explore the data model gradually.

Right-click the start table
Immediate in- and outbound table relations are shown
Navigate to objects and table relation definitions
Expand diagram by exploring in- and outbound relations

THE most requested feature in the world of Microsoft Dynamics NAV development is the "where used". Statical Prism doesn't only fulfill this in the most broad sense, it does that in the most user friendly way thinkable.

I love the speed and the usability of Prism. It comes in very handy when doing code cleanups, refactorings or just a quick code analysis

Prism for C/AL quickly loads objects and immediately gives you an overview of all objects, properties and code. Find Usages then gives you a high level and a detailed view on where variables, fields or functions are used or referenced. And did I mention it's amazingly fast…

This tool is incredibly valuable and time-saving for my daily work. It is easy to use and provides all necessary information you need for efficiently developing in the NAV environment.

This tool is absolutely amazing and it is saving us a load of development hours with the project we have going on right now!

Prism for C/AL is a real gem! It's one of those tools you can't do without if you are serious about development and upgrading databases in Dynamics NAV.

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