RE: Multiple DDS, One Definition

["Mark A. Manske" <mmanske@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

IMHO

Without knowing your business/project requirements:
I would have some questions as to the design "reasoning" to have four
basically identical files;
You may or may not want the record format name the same, do you want the
field names the same,
will one program access more than one of them at a time, can this be a
multi-member file instead,
could you have one copy of the dds and "train" your people to use the
DSPOBJD OBJ(xxx) OBJTYPE(*FILE) DETAIL(*SERVICE) to see what source code was
used to create the file,

"Normally" as for myself, the only time I have had identical file layouts it
was due to archiving the
data for future reference, otherwise I will use one file (mbrs/or not with a
"record flag").

Your options are somewhat limited since you cannot use the /copy in PF, have
multiple sources, one source,
or - a /copy for all your programs and one field in the files (say 32,740
bytes long alpha)and all pgms
use the /copy to put it to a data structure to "break-out" what you want.

HTH (a little)

Mark A. Manske
[mailto:mmanske@minter-weisman.com]
Sr. Project Lead
Minter-Weisman


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of Phil Gregory
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 11:08 AM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Multiple DDS, One Definition


I have four physical files that need to have the same structure.  I'd like
to have four separate DDSes, one for each of the files, so that someone
needing to find the definition of a file can just look for the DDS with
the same name.  Since the files have them same structure, I'd like there
to be a single "master" definition that the others will all reference.
Does anyone know how I could do this?

From looking at the docs, I don't think REF will help, since that requires
each field to be entered and made a reference.  Thus, if a field were
added to the file, all of the child DDSes would have to be updated too.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to say "This member of this file has the same
fields (and definitions) as this other member in this other file."

Can anyone help a poor lost soul?

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