PBToolkit

PBToolkit is a PowerBuilder analysis and extraction toolkit designed to perform large-scale, automated extraction of PowerBuilder libraries (PBLs) and generate structured, reusable artifacts for analysis and documentation, with the ability to leverage AI tools for enhanced code analysis and development insights.

The project is built around the open-source tool pb-pbldump by amoskovsky, which is used as the core extraction engine.

PBToolkit exists because native PowerBuilder tools such as ORCA / ORCAScript are limited to newer versions.

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🧩 Features

• Mass PBL extraction Automates extraction of PowerBuilder objects across multiple PB versions using pb-pbldump.

• Multi-version support Designed to work with legacy and modern PowerBuilder versions (configurable).

• Local mirror workflow Creates a local mirror of PowerBuilder projects to allow safe, repeatable processing.

• Structured output pipeline Generates:

  • Raw extracted sources
  • Consolidated source files
  • SQL SELECT usage analysis
  • Data table mappings
  • Project dependency metadata
  • AICodebase folder (PowerBuilder + AI)

• Extensible Python post-processing Includes a Python pipeline that can be easily extended with additional scripts.

• CLI-based interactive menu Provides a console menu to run the full pipeline or individual steps.

• Creation of the AICodebase folder Creates an AICodebase folder for analyzing large-scale projects with tools like OpenCode, ZeroClaw, VSCode, and AI models.

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🚀 Build and Execution

1. Build the project

Build the project using Visual Studio (x64, Debug or Release).

2. Run without Visual Studio (recommended)

To run PBToolkit without opening the IDE:

1. Build the project once.
2. Move the executable:

PBToolkit/x64/Debug/PBToolkit.exe

to the same directory level as main.cpp.

This allows the tool to resolve paths correctly and run without Visual Studio.

⚠️ If you modify the C++ code, you must rebuild and repeat this step.

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⚙️ Configuration

PowerBuilder versions

Supported PowerBuilder versions are defined in Config.h:

static const inline std::wstring V65  = L"6.5";
static const inline std::wstring V7   = L"7.0";
static const inline std::wstring V8   = L"8.0";
static const inline std::wstring V9   = L"9.0";
static const inline std::wstring V105 = L"10.5";
static const inline std::wstring V125 = L"12.5";

You may freely add or remove versions as needed.

If you change the supported versions, you must also update:

• MirrorManager.cpp
• MenuHandler.cpp
• PblScanner.cpp
• All Python scripts

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PowerBuilder source root

In Config.cpp, you must define:

const fs::path Config::PB_ROOT = fs::path{ LR"(TODO)" };

This path must point to the directory where your PowerBuilder projects (PBLs, PBTs, source folders) are stored.

PBToolkit will create a local mirror from this location for processing.

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Mirror directory

By default, the local mirror is created at:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\PBToolkit\mirror

You can change this path in Config.cpp if needed.

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🐍 Python Pipeline

PBToolkit includes a Python post-processing pipeline managed by PythonRunner.

Adding new Python scripts

1. Create the script inside:

PBToolkit/Source Files/Python

2. Register it in PythonRunner.cpp inside the getPythonScripts() function.
3. If new dependencies are required, update:

PBToolkit/Source Files/Python/requirements.txt

The virtual environment is automatically created and managed by PBToolkit.

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📂 Project Structure (simplified)

PBToolkit/
├── main.cpp
├── PBToolkit.exe
├── PBToolkit.vcxproj
│
├── Header Files/
│   ├── Config.h
│   ├── Logger.h
│   ├── MenuHandler.h
│   ├── MirrorManager.h
│   ├── PblScanner.h
│   ├── PythonRunner.h
│   ├── ScriptGenerator.h
│   └── Utils.h
│
├── Source Files/
│   ├── Main/
│   │   ├── Config.cpp
│   │   ├── Logger.cpp
│   │   ├── MenuHandler.cpp
│   │   ├── MirrorManager.cpp
│   │   ├── PblScanner.cpp
│   │   ├── PythonRunner.cpp
│   │   ├── ScriptGenerator.cpp
│   │   └── Utils.cpp
│   │
│   └── Python/
│       ├── combine_to_files.py
│       ├── extract_pbt_dependencies.py
│       ├── extract_selects.py
│       ├── extract_table_values.py
│       ├── summarize_selects.py
│       └── requirements.txt
│
└── Resource Files/
    └── Libraries/
        └── pbldump-1.3.1stable/
            └── PblDump.exe

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🧪 Intended Use

PBToolkit is intended for:

• Legacy PowerBuilder system analysis
• Large-scale codebase auditing
• Dependency and SQL usage inspection
• Documentation and migration support
• Research and tooling around PowerBuilder internals

It is not a runtime tool and does not execute application logic.

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🧾 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome.

Feel free to:

• Fork the project
• Improve extraction logic
• Add new analysis scripts
• Improve documentation

This project is intentionally modular and designed to be extended.