Sage ProvideX for Visual Studio Code

Language support for Sage ProvideX (the Business BASIC behind Sage 100 / MAS 90 / MAS 200), built as a VS Code extension plus a language server, with optional integration with an installed ProvideX to decompile, compile, syntax-check and run programs.

This is a community project. It is not made, endorsed or supported by Sage. Sage, Sage 100 and ProvideX are trademarks of The Sage Group plc or its licensors. The extension contains no Sage software. Its ProvideX features use the ProvideX you already have installed and licensed.

Features

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85+.
• For ProvideX integration: Windows, with ProvideX installed (Sage 100 installs it). The extension drives the installed interpreter through its ProvideX.Script COM automation server (pvxcom.exe) via a small PowerShell bridge (bridge/pvxbridge.ps1). Nothing extra needs installing.

The home folder (the folder containing pvxwin32.exe and Lib, e.g. C:\Sage\Sage 100\MAS90\Home) is auto-detected from the workspace and the usual install locations. Set providex.home to override.

Readable view of compiled programs

Compiled programs open in a readable form (providex.compiledView: readable, the default, or numbered for raw LIST output). It smooths over ProvideX's quirks, and each of these rewrites was checked against the real ProvideX 9.62 compiler. The checks covered ~2,000 Sage programs plus runtime-equivalence tests.

ProvideX: Make Readable applies the same transformation to a text source. Format Document applies the spacing, indentation and keyword case (providex.format.*).

ProvideX/TS (.pxts)

A TypeScript-style syntax for ProvideX. It is a lossless re-skin: every .pxts file translates to ProvideX, which is what gets compiled and run, and back again. The ProvideX language server serves .pxts files through a token-level position map, so all the language features above work there too.

@create(required)                          // DEF CLASS "AR_MyCustomer" CREATE REQUIRED
class AR_MyCustomer extends SY_Maint {     // LIKE "SY_Maint"
  @get(GET_BALANCE) readonly Balance;      // PROPERTY Balance GET GET_BALANCE SET ERR
  private coSession;                       // LOCAL coSession

  constructor(coSession) {                 // ON_CREATE: / ENTER coSession
    return;
  }

  Recalc(force?) {                         // FUNCTION Recalc(force)RECALC ... RECALC: / ENTER force,ERR=*NEXT
    if (this.GetColumnInfo("AR_Customer", "Balance").Length > 0 && !force) {
      return retSUCCESS;
    }
    for (i = 1; i <= 10; i++) total += i;
    read({ ch: cCh, key: k$, err: *NEXT }, rec$);   // READ (cCh,KEY=k$,ERR=*NEXT)rec$
    o = new SY_Thing(coSession);                    // NEW("SY_Thing",coSession)
    pvx`PRINT 'CS','BR',@(0,0),"raw ProvideX"`;     // anything else, verbatim
    return retSUCCESS;
  }
}

function repeat$(s$, n) {          // DEF FN with real local scope (LOCAL), see below
  let out$ = "", i
  for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) out$ += s$
  return out$
}

const FNTAX = (A) => A * 0.07;     // DEF FNTAX(A)=A*0.07

Classes keep their layout. A ProvideX class is a header (DEF CLASS … END DEF) followed by LABEL: sections. In ProvideX/TS the methods sit inside the class, so the header and the sections are regenerated when you save. When you save over an existing program, declarations and comments that only moved go back to where the program had them, and so do equivalent spellings such as IF (x) THEN vs IF x THEN. Saving an unchanged file therefore leaves the program unchanged. A class keeps the ProvideX layout when its methods are implemented outside its region.

Functions with local scope. ProvideX DEF FN parameters are global (calling FNX(5) overwrites a caller's X), and RETURN is not allowed inside a loop. function lowers to a pattern that was verified against ProvideX 9.62. Parameters are passed under mangled names (px_name.arg) and copied into LOCAL variables, which are saved per call, so recursion works. Every let becomes a LOCAL. A return inside loops sets a flag and BREAKs out level by level. The generated lines carry ! @pxts tags, so they fold back into the function form. Limits: LOCAL arrays are not allowed, and DEF FN recursion is capped at roughly 100 levels by ProvideX.

Commands: Convert to ProvideX/TS (.pxts), Convert ProvideX/TS to ProvideX, Open Compiled Program as ProvideX/TS (or set providex.compiledView to typescript). Compile and Run work on .pxts files directly.

Verification: every program in the ~2,000-program Sage corpus was translated readable → .pxts → ProvideX and compiled. ProvideX's own listing has to be identical to the readable form's, apart from equivalent spellings such as ""/$$. Runtime tests confirm the function semantics (recursion, locals, return from nested loops and from switch).

ProvideX licences

Decompiling, compiling and ProvideX syntax checking all need ProvideX to list and edit programs. ProvideX only allows that with a development activation. An install activated as runtime-only (the end-user licence that ships with a typical Sage 100 install) refuses with Error #61 "Authorization failure". The licence is checked by ProvideX itself, against the activation in its Lib\Keys folder (set up with pvxwactv.exe). The extension cannot and does not change that.

At startup the extension tries every ProvideX install it finds and uses one with a development licence. It prefers providex.home, then the install nearest the workspace. Which ProvideX does the work doesn't depend on where the program lives, so a development install can open another install's programs. If the preferred install is runtime-only, you're told which one is used instead. If none has a development licence, the status bar shows ProvideX: runtime licence, and every feature that doesn't need ProvideX keeps working. Click the status bar item (or run ProvideX: Choose ProvideX Installation) to see what each install reported and to pick another.

File types

• Text sources: .pvx, .pvt, .pvxsrc, .bbx, .pxs (and .txt files that look like ProvideX). Statement numbers are optional. Numbered (0010 PRINT …) and lineless (label-based) code are both supported. Lineless sources are numbered automatically when compiled.
• Compiled programs ([Pvxprg] header) open through the pvxprg: file system, decompiled with ProvideX's own LIST.

Commands

ProvideX: Open Compiled Program as Source, Decompile Program to Text File, Compile Current File, Check Syntax with ProvideX, Run Program, Evaluate Expression, Renumber Statements, Toggle Statement Numbers, Show Status, Restart Language Server.

Settings

How the language data was produced

The lexicon (data/lexicon.json: 195 directives, 126 functions, 46 system variables, mnemonics, I/O options, operators and aliases) was extracted from the ProvideX 9.62 lexer table Lib/_lexdef.en. The installed ProvideX read it via its COM server. Error texts (data/errors.json) come from MSG(n), and system parameters (data/params.json) from Lib/_prmdef.en.

REA (with Rizin) was used to inspect pvxwin32.dll. It showed that the interpreter carries no keyword strings of its own, which means the external lexer table is authoritative. That finding is why the tables above are taken from _lexdef.en. Descriptions and signatures (data/docs/*.json) were written separately, and their arities and return types were checked against the real ProvideX compiler (see data/docs/VALIDATION.md).

To regenerate the tables from your own ProvideX version:

set PVX_HOME=C:\Sage\Sage 100\MAS90\Home
npm run extract

Development

npm install
npm run build          # bundle client + server into dist/
npm test               # unit, grammar and language-server tests (set PVX_HOME to include ProvideX bridge tests)
npm run test:vscode    # integration tests in an isolated VS Code (set VSCODE_EXECUTABLE to use an installed Code.exe)
npm run test:corpus -- <folder of .pvx files>   # analyzer false-positive report over a corpus
npm run package        # build a .vsix

scripts/build-corpus.mjs decompiles a folder of compiled programs into a local corpus for test:corpus. Never commit decompiled Sage code.

Limitations

• ProvideX reports syntax errors per statement (Error #20), with no column. The whole statement is marked.
• There is no debugger integration: ProvideX has no debug-adapter interface. Use Run Program together with ProvideX's own SETTRACE/ESCAPE tooling.
• The COM bridge is Windows-only. On other platforms every language feature works except the ProvideX-backed ones.