RE: Activation groups for beginners

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nelson Smith wrote:

>Question on an odd observation about the RCLACTGRP command:
>
>Here in this shop, we have hundreds of legacy CL OPM driver
>type programs that all have RCLACTGRP *ELIGIBLE at the end
>as part of their cleanup routine.  We have had many problems
>with MCH3402 errors and "object not found in stack", etc.
>and removing this command has solved most of them.

That's roughly analogous to flipping the circuit breaker on the computer
room to end a running program.  This says in effect, "wipe out all the
storage you can get your hands on."  Generally, only a very few programs
should use this - things like menu programs.

GLMENU
 01 - Chart of accounts
 02 - Balance sheet
 ...
ARMENU
 01 - Customer inq
 02 - ATB
 ...

>The odd thing I notice, however, when reviewing the
>joblogs, is that on many such crashes, the joblog
>will say "0 Activation Groups reclaimed".  Does the
>command affect anything other than activation groups?

Not that I know of.  Here's the CL Reference:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v5r1/ic2924/info/cl/rclactgr.h
tm

>How is it possible, that removing the command fixes
>the problem if no activation groups were
>reclaimed in the first place?

This is perhaps THE hairy part of ILE.  Errors may not show up until later
because wiping out storage NOW doesn't do anything until the next time the
program runs.  Remember that activation (initialising storage, etc.) is
different from running.  A program is activated once per AG, including *DAG.

Perhaps if you posted a bit more about the application... Are the ILE
programs running in *DAG?  QILE?  *NEW?  Why was it decided to do a
RCLACTGRP *ELIGIBLE in the CL programs?
  --buck