Re: SrvPgms and Change Management

** REPLYING TO A POST IN RPG400-L

Fleming, Greg (ED) wrote:
> Our change management software (MKS Implementer v5.4) won't cooperate.
> I contacted them, and they sent me a nice knowledgebase article which
> seems to confirm that all related objects must be checked out along with
> the module being changed and promoted right along with it.  (It
> explicitly states that they do not nor will they ever support UPDSRVPGM
> or UPDPGM). Not only this, but I must also check out and recreate the
> service program itself with the module and all the programs.

The related objects don't necessarily have to be checked out ... You
only have to checkout & recompile the programs that reference the
service program if you are changing the service programs signature.
Obviously this is easier to control if you use binder source to specify
the signatures (this is what we do internally).

If all you're doing is changing the logic of a procedure in a module,
check out the module & service program, change the logic, recompile the
module & service program, and you're all set.  Implementer will use the
environments library list to find all the required modules in addition
to the module you are changing.

IIRC: UPDSRVPGM & UPDPGM basically do the same thing as CRTSRVPGM and
CRTPGM do ... only faster, because they don't have to re-copy all the
modules.  If you change the signature of a service program with
UPDSRVPGM, then programs that reference it will break with a signature
violation (I'm not 100% sure on that bit).

When you promote the service program in Implementer, any related objects
will automatically be added to the request and recompiled.  This, of
course, happens largely under the covers... so you don't have to worry
about it.

david
(who works for MKS as well as run the lists)