Re: Exploring BPCS 405 CD Data Areas via RPG & CL

Via experimentation I figured out what I needed.
This may be old hat to some other folks on Midrange_L but it is cool new 
stuff to me.

I now have a list of all of our BPCS data areas, thanks to DSPOBJD *BASIC 
list of *DTAARA from BPCS files library to *OUTFILE which is read 
sequentially by an RPG program which calls a CL program.

The called CL program does a CHKOBJ ... in the early stages I was manually 
deleting old work areas connected to no longer existing work station 
addresses, but now the outer menu CL refreshes latest DSPOBJD ... then it RTV 
the actual contents of the data area.

The RPG program charts what is in each data area, selecting the first few 
characters, with breaks on types of data areas (characters in front of the 
work station address) & compares one data input to the next, printing *** at 
the side when one is different content than previous one in group.  I have 
been researching what this MEANS & adding that to my report, since some mean 
a potential unexploded mine field for my co-workers & now this report shows 
me what data areas are messed up that can be cleaned up to avert the next 
explosion.

I had initially wanted to try to figure out how to do RTV within RPG program.
Unfortunately there is very little consistency in sizes of the actual data 
area & I did not see how to get at their defined lengths.
I futzed around with *NAMVAR IN but could not figure out if RPG/400 supported 
having an input based on variable field naming like substring & cat use 
NAME:POS

I wanted a loop that says
read next *OUTFILE record with name of data area
read in that data area
process it
read in next one, without program having to name all the possibilities

It does not matter now because I have achieved a report listing important 
parts of the contents of our data areas, and illuminating those that are 
messed up.

Thanks anyway for MIDRANGE-L tips & techniques 

Alister William Macintyre 
Computer Data Janitor etc. of BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 on 400 model 170 OS4 V4R3 
(forerunner to IBM e-Server i-Series 400)  @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central 
Industries of Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and 
electrical sub-assemblies

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