RE: Environment variables and IASP's on the I-Series

[Evan Harris <spanner@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi again Jim

seems to me a user space is better if the values are required to be 
persistent; I would expect that the environment variables would need 
to be set somewhere, maybe at best at IPL - which means you need 
somewhere to retrieve them from...

I like the indirection factor as well, but a user space works good 
for this stuff. You can easily knock up a command to mimic the 
behaviour of the WRKENVVAR command. Using a combination of a 
WRK<something> command and a RTV<something> command will achieve what 
you want. For the WRK command you need to investigate a Prompt 
override program. You guys already do this for the RTVIASPA command - 
why do it another different way ?

I generally use an External data structure to document the layout and 
impose structure but it is hardly a requirement - just a preference.

Re the beer: I'm up for a beer tomorrow night if you're interested, 
otherwise Sunday may be a chance.

Regards
Evan Harris

At 12:52 p.m. 22/09/2005, you wrote:
> My intention is to hold certain variables that will be global for all of
> our boxes.
> These variable will hold the (mostly) permanent locations for certain
> message files, message queues, etc.
>
> I'm already using a module to retrieve the values - so that will be
> application independent.
>
> Simple example:
> I often need to parse out the full message text of a message with
> parameters. This requires knowing the location of the message file where
> the message is (CPF's are in QCPFMSG, RNQ's are in QRNXMSG, etc.) I
> don't want to hard code these locations. Another need is the name of
> certain message queues that will hold debug information. I don't want to
> hard code those either. So I have the following environment variables:
>
> CPF_MSG_LOC = QSYS/QCPFMSG
> RNQ_MSG_LOC = QSYS/QRNXMSG
> ERR_MSGQ = *LIBL/FDM_ERRMSG
>
> And I have a module to retrieve the location based on the variable. I
> like this kind of indirection.
>
> Why not user spaces or data areas?
>
> An extra object to move around.
> An extra object to get trashed.
> Data areas often get corrupted (as in un-structured. Messy. Etc)
> Commands already built in for WRKENVVAR and such.
> The data will not change very often - so it just feels better with
> environment variables to me.
>
> The variables will (should) always be the same on all machines.
>
> Specifically about the IASP's - I need an understanding considering our
> failover capacities. You know those details of course.
>
> Thanks for the input.
>
> Let me know when you're up for a beer ;-)
>
> Jim