Re: Service programs

[Michael Ryan <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A service program is a collection of modules which are in turn collections
of procedures. A service program is a packaging technique. Rather than
having a program with a bunch of subroutines, we take the subroutines that
are used in more than one program (by copying code or using /COPY) and make
them procedures. Then we put like procedures in modules. Then we take like
modules and put them into service programs.

That way when I write my mainline code, I can access all those procedures in
the service program just by specifying the procedure name and passing the
parameters. When we create a program by binding mainline code with a service
program (or two or three or...) it's called bind by reference.

And yes, the procedures in a service program can read and write to files. In
fact, that's often a good use of service programs. That way you don't have
the I/O code in your program - you just call a procedure in a service
program to do the I/O and pass back the results.

On 1/27/06 05:46 PM, "thomas" <rpgguru2@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> does anyone have a simple service program I could look at to start to
> understand them.  A list of rules of what has to happen would help.  Have
> figured out that you cannot read and write files in a SERVICE program. Or at
> least I think that is right. Thomas Burrows
> 
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