RE: Eliminating *MODULES with IMPORT and EXPORT parms and replacing them with Service Programs

Hi Eric,

See inline comments:

"Do you make use of Binding Directories to help you build your ILE
programs? If you do, I suspect that currently your binding directory
references *MODULE objects, no *SRVPGM objects... If you don't use
binding directories (meaning that you specify all the modules in your
compile command), you should look at them immediately."

--Yes - we use one 'master' binding directory and all but two entries are
for *module (we have 2 *SRVPGM entries).

"If you ARE using binding directories, to convert from Bind-by-Copy to
Bind-by-Reference, all you need to do is create service programs from your
modules, then remove the *module entry from your binding directory and add
it as *srvpgm. Any programs that use your binding directory will then
change to bind-by-reference the next time they are compiled. Make sure to
use the H specs to tell the compiler to use your ACTGRP and BNDDIR values
specified in your source."

-- Yep - that is what I would like to do - remove the *MODULE entry and
replace it with *SRVPGM in the binding directory.

We have an H spec copybook with the following:

H Option(*NODEBUGIO : *SRCSTMT)
H BNDDIR('MASTER') BNDDIR('QC2LE')
H DFTACTGRP(*NO)
H ACTGRP(*CALLER)

The one area that I have concerns with here is the ACTGRP(*CALLER) entry
in the H spec copybook. My concern lies in that we may have some OPM
programs that would result in running the the default AG. My thought is
when compiling service programs we should use the service program name for
the activation group parameter on the CRTSRVPGM. (That was a suggestion
from another thread awhile back here on RPG-L).

"The mechanics of this are really easy to accomplish. You *could* do this
bind method change today, leaving everything else just as it is
(import/export fields, no parms, etc.) and reduce the size of your
programs, if that's your primary goal... However, I would hope that
defining real PR/PI (parameter definitions) and making use of local
variables (to reduce the use of module scoped "global" data) is on your
hit list as well. Where the binding method is easy to change, fixing your
architecture is a much bigger job."

-- Reducing program size is one goal, (not the primary one but is
beneficial), using real PI/PR to as you say reduce the use of 'module
scoped global data' is IMO a bigger goal (as well as introducing these
concepts to the staff). Yes the binding method is the easy part - and
fixing our architecture is indeed a big job, but I feel that these baby
steps will get us moving in the right direction.


Thanks, Jerry

Gerald Kern - Information Technology
Programming Supervisor
IBM Certified RPG IV Developer
Lotus Notes/Domino 8.0.1 Administrator
The Toledo Clinic, Inc.
4235 Secor Road
Toledo, OH 43623
Phone 419-479-5535
gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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