(Available in PC*MILER Connect 33 and Higher)
PC*MILER Connect has a logging feature that can track all of your API calls, as well as the results of those calls, and save them in a log file. With the Connect logging tool introduced with PC*MILER 33, you can “replay” a Connect session from a previous version, using an old log file. With this tool, you can:
See how your API calls from a previous PC*MILER version will respond in a more current version. (Compatible with versions 30 and higher.)
Run a report where you can see the differences between the two versions in mileage, geocoding results and Connect API return codes.
Detect errors in your old log files.
In this article:
Getting Started
To generate log files in PC*MILER Connect, you first have to change a setting in the pcmservice.ini to turn on logging, and create your log file (pcmserve.log).
1. Go to C:\WINDOWS and open pcmserve.ini in a text editor
2. Make the following changes:
[Logging] Enable=1 File=C:\ALK Technologies\PCMILERxx\App\pcmserve.log (Path can be wherever you would like to store your log file)
3. Restart and run your application/service to generate a log file
Download the Logging Tool
The new logging tool is attached to this article. We recommended you save the executable (pcmstest_log.exe) to a different directory from where you keep your log files. (The path you set in Step 2 above.) This will prevent files created by the logging tool from overwriting any of your existing log files.
Using the Logging Tool
You can run the logging tool from a Command Prompt. Navigate to the directory where you have saved pcmstest_log.exe, and run the tool using the following command and arguments.
pcmstest_log.exe -input:<input file> -report:<report file> -diff:<true or false>
-input:<input file>
(Required) This is the pcmserve.log file that you want to replay in your currently installed version of PC*MILER. If this is the only argument you enter, the logging tool will output a report that contains a list of the distinct Connect APIs used in your input log.
The report will be given the name of your input file, with a file type of .rpt. (For example, if you input myreport.log, the output report will be myreport.rpt.) It will be saved in the same directory where you have saved pcmstest_log.exe.
TIP: If you only want to replay a small portion of the pcmserve.log, you can cut out any section, save it as a new file and replay just that section.
-report:<report file>
(Optional) You can use this parameter if you want to give the output report a different name from your input log file.
-diff:<true or false>
(Optional) If you enter true for the diff argument, the program will not only create a report with a list of APIs, but also “replay” the log in the current version of PC*MILER. The report will then include a comparison of:
Mileage results between your input log file and the results generated by this program, using the more current version of PC*MILER.
Geocoding results for our most widely used geocoding APIs—PCMSLookup, PCMS Adstop and PCMSGetMatch APIs.
API return codes, if any differences exist.
The logging tool will output the differences in the report file, specified in the report argument above. If you do not specify this optional -diff argument, the program will default to false with no comparisons report.
Error Handling
The program will also create an error file if it detects issues in the input file. The error will be named <your_input_file>_semantic.log. For example, if the input file is pcmserve.log then the error file name will be pcmserve_semantic.log.
Example Request
Example Output
Myreport (Opened in Text Editor)
Help
While using the program, you can pull up help at any time by entering the following prompt in the command line.
pcmstest_log.exe --help or pcmstest_log -h