RE: merging message data and description to get text

["Hewitt, Rory" <rory.hewitt@xxxxxx>]

Brian,
 
I wrote a procedure which checks the 3-character message prefix for a match in 
an array of message prefices - I pass a message ID into the procedure and it 
returns the qualified message file name. So, for instance, I have a CTDATA 
array like:
 
...
CPD QCPFMSG   QSYS
CPF QCPFMSG   QSYS
CP  QCPFMSG   QSYS
C   QCPFMSG   QSYS
TCP QTCPMSGF  QTCP
...
 
and so on. If it can't find a match for the 3-character prefix, it tries the 
first 2 haracters, and finally simply the first character of the message ID, so 
a CPFnnnn, CPXnnnn and CXXnnnn messages (using the above array) will always 
return QSYS/QCPFMSG.
 
It's actually a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. I also 
hooked it into the DSPMSGD command, so you don't need to specify the message 
file - it uses this program to determine the message file name.
 
Rory