Re: ILE and Access Paths

Marco Facchinetti wrote:
> 
> Barbara, what are the risks if the activation group ends and the files are
> not yet closed?
> 

The only thing I can think of (a somewhat farfetched scenario) is that
you might have an incomplete block of records waiting to be written out
to a blocked output file.  When the file gets closed automatically
because of the activation group ending, the block of records will be
written out.  If the block contains a record with a data mapping error,
that record and all the records following it will not get written out to
the file.

If you don't want to close your output files, you can still write out
any incomplete blocks by using FEOD on your blocked output files before
you return.  (Use FEOD(N) for best performance.)  If you use FEOD,
you'll get an exception in your program if there are any data mapping
errors, instead of possibly having to wait until RCLACTGRP time and
missing the errors.

It's not that easy to get a data-mapping error on output.  The only way
I know to do it using RPG is to have a file with a date, time or
timestamp field, and get RPG to write out the record without checking
the d/t/z.  You can do this either a) by incorrectly program-describing
the file to have character fields, or b) by using a result DS for an
externally-described file, and not putting a valid value in the d/t/z
subfield.

Example:

 * File JUNK
A          R REC                
A            DATE            L  

 * RPG program JUNKPGM
H dftactgrp(*no) actgrp('JUNK')
FJUNK      o    f   10        disk             
F#junkf    o    f   10        disk               
D ds              ds            10               
C                   eval      ds = '2005-01-01'  
C                   write     junk          ds   
C                   eval      ds = 'bad date'    
C                   write     junk          ds   
C                   eval      ds = '2005-01-03'  
C                   write     junk          ds   
C                   return                       

===> CALL JUNKPGM
===> RCLACTGRP JUNK
- check the joblog - it will say 2 records were lost
- check the file - it will only show 2005-01-01