Using the Auto-Chunk utility

To use the Auto-Chunk utility to create a single dictionary chunk for your application dictionary, complete the following steps.

Start Dexterity Utilities and open your extracted dictionary as an editable dictionary. If you haven’t extracted your application yet, be sure to do so following the processes described in Building An Application.

  1. Name the chunk.

Choose Auto-Chunk from the Utilities menu on the toolbar. The Auto-Chunk window will appear. Click the Chunk Dictionary lookup button; a dialog box will appear prompting you to name the dictionary chunk you’re creating. Name the chunk and click OK.

Due to a historical limitation imposed by early versions of Windows, the name of the chunk dictionary must not exceed 13 characters, including the .cnk extension. If the name exceeds 13 characters, the chunk cannot be accessed by the runtime engine and will not be unchunked.


  1. Specify chunk options.

To complete the process of creating a chunk, use the Auto-Chunk window.

Dictionary   Enter the name of the dictionary created once the installation is complete. For the sample integrating application, this is DEVELOP.DIC. Do not enter the name of the Dynamics.dic dictionary.

Module   This selection indicates which module the Major Version, Minor Version and Build Number information is associated with. (These are the fields below the Module field.) The setting in the Module field is used when the version numbers and build number are retrieved from the dictionary.

Refer to the Runtime_GetModuleInfo() function for information about retrieving version and build numbers.

Major Version/Minor Version   Enter the major and minor version numbers for your application. For instance, if your application is version 1.3, enter a 1 for the major number and a 3 for the minor number. If you’d like, you can use the same version number scheme used by Microsoft Dynamics GP. You can retrieve these numbers from your application dictionary and display them in your application’s About box.

The values you choose for the major version and minor version are significant. If a Microsoft Dynamics GP installation contains a dictionary for a previous version of your product, the dictionary chunk you are creating will unchunk only if the major version and minor version numbers in the chunk match those in the existing dictionary. If the version numbers don’t match, an error indicating the issue will be written to the InstallErrors.txt file in the Microsoft Dynamics GP installation folder. The dictionary chunk won’t be deleted.

Build Number   Enter the build of the current version of the dictionary. You can retrieve this build number and display it in your application’s About box.

If you have multiple dictionary chunks with the same major version and minor version values, the build number is used to determine the order in which the dictionary chunks are unchunked. The chunks with lower build number values are unchunked first.

If an installation contains a dictionary for which the major and minor version numbers match those of the dictionary chunk, the build number will be examined. If the build number of the chunk is the same or greater than the build number of the dictionary, the chunk will be unchunked. If the build number of the chunk is lower, it will not be unchunked, and a message indicating the issue will be written to the InstallErrors.txt file in the Microsoft Dynamics GP installation folder. The dictionary chunk will be deleted.

Starting/Ending Script   These fields specify which installation scripts (procedures) run when the chunk dictionary unchunks. Installation scripts are procedures you write in the development dictionary that perform setup tasks when your application installs with Microsoft Dynamics GP. To specify a starting or ending script, mark the corresponding check box and click the lookup button for the starting or ending script. A list of the procedures in your extracted application dictionary will appear. Choose the installation script.

The installation scripts run only after the chunk dictionary unchunks. The starting script runs first, then the ending script runs. If you have a single main installation script (similar to the IG_Install_Main installation script for the sample integrating application), simply indicate the main installation script as the starting script, and don’t indicate an ending script.

Compression   Choose to remove either unused blocks from the dictionary, or to perform a total compression, which removes unused blocks and all script source. Typically, you should perform a total compression when delivering integrating applications.

  1. Create the chunk.

Click OK to begin the chunking process. Once the Auto-Chunk utility creates the chunk dictionary, the Auto-Chunk window will close.

  1. Make a backup.

Make a backup of the chunk dictionary. At this point, you should test the chunk dictionary following the instructions in Testing the installation process.


Documentation Feedback