Re: I want the system to hold my program until more data arrives.........

[Rich Duzenbury <rduz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:16 PM 12/2/02, you wrote:
> I use OVRDBF EOFDLY, the program goes into state EOFW.
> You will need to make provision to tell the program
> to terminate.  I usually write a record to the
> file with EOFDLY with a special value eg.
> 'TERMINATE' the program checks for the value then
> ends. (Seton LR , RETURN etc)
I've had negative experiences with programs that write special 'terminate'
messages.  It seems that folks will run them more than once, such that the
next time the service starts, it immediately terminates itself.  Several
years ago, I saw an amusing case where several tens of 'terminate' messages
were written to the file.  Needless to say, the service would not stay
active until special action was taken to clear the bogus messages.

I don't believe you have to go to any such trouble as to write a special
record.  As I recall, a controlled end of job will terminate the read
statement.  Then, simply run the SHTDN opcode to test to see if the job is
being ended.  If so, terminate gracefully.

Regards,
Rich