Re: Interesting message queue behavior

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff

I'd not really paid attention to this until a few months ago, too. This was 
when I was changing the definition of some of our product messages. It 
strikes as similar to output queues, which do not have the actual files on 
them, just references to the actual files. Likewise, it appears that 
message queues have message ID, message file, and message data, basically.

Vern

At 07:33 AM 9/25/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> I ran across some interesting message behavior yesterday.  First a bit of 
> background so you know where I'm at.
>
> The salespeople transmit orders from their laptops into the iSeries.  I 
> have 2 message queues defined, ACCESS and ORDERS.  ACCESS contains a 
> number of messages from each transmission: The fact it started, who it is, 
> what they're sending in, when it finished, etc.  The purpose of ACCESS is 
> if there is a problem, I can see a lot of detail as to what went 
> on.  ORDERS contains 1 message per order transmitted.  The purpose of 
> ORDERS is for the system operator to easily check who has trannsmitted 
> today and who hasn't.
>
> Yesterday about 4pm the system operator came in and said she had a 
> problem.  ORDERS was completely empty.  I looked at it and it was.  I 
> immediately thought someone (probably her) had hit F13 while viewing 
> it.  Checked authority and *PUBLIC can only add messages and view it. 
> Hmmm.  Checked the auditing journal and found nothing.  Then I looked at 
> ACCESS message queue.  Only the 'Transmission finished' messages were 
> there with a number of blank lines in between!
>
> To make a long story short, I have a message member I created years ago 
> with all my error messages, info messages, etc.  I put in a USR9897 and 
> USR9898 which are essentially clones of CPF9897 and CPF9898, i.e., the 
> first level message is "&1" and "&1." respectively.  I used USR9897 to 
> send these messages.
>
> I had been looking at USR9897 with a utility, WMF, that I downloaded from 
> somewhere.  WMF evidently has a bug to where it removes the &1 so the 
> message after that was ' '.  When I put the &1 back in, all the message 
> reappeared!  I learned something new.  Messages in message queues are 
> evidently just links back to the message member.  If you change a message 
> in a message member, all occurrences of that message in message queues are 
> immediately changed.  Even if they were sent hours before.  I never knew that.
>
> And now everybody will chime in and say they already knew that, where have 
> you been? <g>
>
> --
> Jeff Crosby
> Dilgard Frozen Foods, Inc.
> P.O. Box 13369
> Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
> 260-422-7531