RE: Help with data area in RPG

On Fri, 2005-12-16 at 07:33 -0800, Willie J. Moore wrote:
> Donald,
> We have printers though out the plant. When a tech prints a tag we want it to 
> print at a printer near him. The tech can move around to different areas, but 
> keep the same handheld with him. The tech could even sign off, so I do not 
> want them to have to select the location each time they sign on.
> 
> I will give them a menu to select their location and then set the printer ID 
> that is closest to them in their data area. It would then update his data 
> area with the printer id.  In the print CL, I would read this data area and 
> load the printer id into a declare statement which would set the printer outq 
> in the print override.
> 
> If he moves, he could select the menu option to set a new printer id.
> 
> I have used the *LDA in other programs, but never tried to select a data area.
> 
> This seamed so simple at first. But with little experience in RPGLE I am have 
> some problems.
> 
> Thanks for all the help you are giving me.

So, why a data area?

Why not a file keyed by user id?
                                    UNIQUE
 R FORMAT
   UserID       10A
   LocationId    2A
 K UserID


FUSERS     IF   E           K DISK

 * Program Status Data Structure
D psds           sds
D   sds_proc        *proc
D   $usr                358    367

 /free
    chain $usr USERS;
    if %found(USERS);
        // do something
    endif;

    *inlr = *on;
 /end-free

That way, if you have 1000 users, you won't have 1000 data areas lying
about, just 1000 records in a table and the data will persist easily.  

Regards,
Rich