About the Rename a Class wizard

Use the Rename a Class wizard to rename a class and all of its pattern inheritance dependent classes. In addition you can choose to rename associated objects such as work- instances, properties, activities, and flows.

Note: The Rename a Class wizard is designed to assist with refactoring applications that are in development. It is not intended to be used on a deployed production application.

The wizard reports any locked rulesets or rules that are checked out before renaming anything.

In addition to exact matches to the specified class name to be changed, the wizard identifies references to the current class name in embedded strings, for example in property names or in embedded Java modules. The wizard displays a listing of these "inexact" matches, and you can select which to include to be renamed and which to preserve unchanged.

In particular, use Rename a Class for applications with fewer than a thousand work objects, or select No on the Work Objects page to drop references in the work objects to the new class name. After the class is renamed, work items that referenced the original class can be viewed only as XML.

Starting the wizard

To improve performance, purge all existing work objects from the class before running the Rename a Class wizard.

Select Configure > System > Refactor > Classes > Rename a Class to start the wizard. You can return to a previous step using the <<Back button.

Alternatively, select a case type or work pool in the Application Explorer, right-click, and select Refactor > Rename a Class from the context menu.

No rules are altered by the wizard until you click Next after reviewing additional rules to be changed on the next-to-last page. For instructions on the forms, see:

Resuming the wizard

This wizard creates a work item with prefix pxW-. To find open wizard work items, select the menu option Dev Studio > Application > Tools > All Wizards .

Prerequisites

You can rename a class if it meets these conditions:

  1. The class must be visible in your Access Group.
  2. The class may not be one of the standard classes, those in the Pega- rulesets.
  3. The original class cannot have Final availability.
  4. All rules to be modified must be checked in. (If rules are checked out, check them in and restart the wizard.)
  5. All rules to be modified must belong to unlocked ruleset versions. You must supply the appropriate password to unlock the locked rules, or you can opt to skip them for this operation.
  6. The new name of the class must not already exist in the system. Class names need to be unique system-wide, rather than unique within a specific ruleset.
  7. You cannot change an abstract class to a concrete class or vice versa. For example, class A- cannot be renamed to B, and B cannot be renamed to A-.

Results

When complete, the renaming wizard changes your system in the following ways:

  1. The class is renamed.
  2. Direct and pattern inheritance references the new class name. As a result, there will be no effect on rule resolution.
  3. If the option has been selected, Work- instances associated with the class are renamed.
  4. All properties, activities, flows, and other rules that referenced the original class now reference the class by the new name.
  5. If the class is a work pool or defines an external data table, the Data-Admin-DB-Table instance is updated to reflect the new class name.
  6. The wizard creates a new History- class for the new class, and it will identify that the class has been renamed. The History- class for the old class name is deleted.

The old class name is retained until all changes to dependent classes and Work- instances are completed. Then the original class is deleted. If the system is stopped while renaming is in progress, you can restart the process by executing the utility from the beginning.