Re: explicit close

[Buck Calabro <buck.calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Taylor wrote:

>Each SrvPgm contains an initialization 
>and a clean-up procedure. The file
>open logic is contained in the initialization 
>procedure, and the close logic is in the 
>clean-up procedure. Both are exported, 
>though rarely used by the caller.

It's an interesting question:  Do we have getCustName do the open (in case
the caller "forgot") or do we return a "not open" error and have the caller
perform the proper initialisation?  I do the latter but I see the wisdom in
the former, in which case I would indeed have getCustName call the public
fileOpen procedure.

>How the resources are closed depends 
>upon the type of caller. If the caller
>is designed to run in a named or *NEW 
>activation group, then I rely upon the
>destruction of the activation group to 
>close the resources. However, if the
>caller runs in the *DFT ag, or QILE, 
>then I handle resource clean up 
>within the program itself.

Sadly, this is a level of sophistication that many shops aren't ready for.
It seems pretty straightforward once you've done an application this way,
but that first step is a doosy!  John, what sort of programmers are in your
shop?  We have a broad mix of mostly inexperienced folks peppered with
S/36ers and a handful of S/38 - AS/400 folks.  I find that beginners are OK
with explicit closes but the whole activation group thing gets by them.  I'm
more than happy just to get service programs in production!

Buck Calabro
Aptis; Albany, NY
"We are what we repeatedly do.
 Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle


Billing Concepts Corp., a NASDAQ Listed Company, Symbol: BILL
+---
| This is the RPG/400 Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---