RE: Reference files -- RPG400-L

Sherry,
As other people have pointed out, reference files are for commonly defined
fields that are used in other files.

For example, if you have a receipt number field used in several files and it
is defined as 5,0 P  and several files refer to this field as their
reference field.  Now you find out business is good and you need to increase
the field size to 7,0 P. You just change it in the reference file, recompile
it and recompile the files that reference this field, as well as recompiling
your programs.  Now everything should be back in sync and when you look back
to your reference field you can see what all files that reference this field
are at.

It was very nice when you have to do something like expanding a date field
to 8 positions from 6.  You know that old Y2K thing.  The problem you could
run into by deleting this reference file is that if any of your PFs
referenced the files you deleted, you will have to manually fix them should
you need to recreate them.

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sherry McMahon [SMTP:smcm@frontiernet.net]
> Sent: Monday, January 03, 2000 5:28 AM
> To:   RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      Reference files
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> Thank you for the help with the OMIT option in the SAVLIB command.  It
> helped me greatly and prompted me to order the 'CL Programming for the
> IBM'
> book.
> 
> I have another situation I've been wondering about and haven't felt
> comfortable with the answers I've gotten when I've asked programmers I
> work
> with.  I've rewritten Sys36 programs in RPGIV and converted flat files to
> 400 physical files.  (Once again Scott, thank you thank you thank you for
> your help) As I was doing this I saw other files, already AS/400 PF, had
> reference files.  Everything I could read about reference files told me
> they
> were just PFs.  I didn't understand why there were reference files then
> physical files then logical files.  In my conversions (Y2K) I did away
> with
> the reference files and made the system consistent with just having the
> data
> in the physical files.  Originally some of the data was in physical files
> and some in the reference files.   All anyone could tell me was this was
> the
> SYS36 way and the people before me stayed with what they knew.  The fact
> that I don't understand why these files were necessary makes me afraid I
> may
> have done some harm by doing away with the reference files, although
> everything is working fine.  As usual the books and online references
> aren't
> clear to me.  Could someone give me some insight into this?
> 
> Thank you,
> Sherry McMahon
> 
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