Re: MAIN and LR

On 9/26/2012 9:28 AM, Vernon Hamberg wrote:

So to clarify about initialization - and I did look at the reference and
programmer's guide just now - when using MAIN, the extra initialization
for the cycle doesn't happen. You can't even HAVE an *INZSR, as I
understand.

That's correct. Part of the *INIT part of the cycle is used even for no-main and linear-main modules, but it's only done once per activation group, the first time any procedure in the module gets called. So global data gets initialized, global files get implicitly opened, but that's all.

I assume that data declared in the MAIN subprocedure is initialized
every time it is called, unless declared as STATIC.

Yes, the main subprocedure behaves exactly the same as any RPG subprocedure.

So what happens with global data? If running in *DFTACTGRP? Or is that
not possible with a linear-main module? I did see the section on module
initialization, with the subtopic on global data. But it wasn't clear
what happens with global data when there is no cycle initialization.

*DFTACTGRP is possible. In that case, the module would be initialized once in the job, and never again.

Maybe, too, this is a stimulus to avoiding global data and passing it
along in parameters from the MAIN subprocedure, eh?

True. Being able to pass files around allows you to even avoid global files. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that module-level global data and files are necessarily to be avoided.

I have to find a few minutes to try out some stuff, I can see that!

Yep, the best way I know to learn about stuff is by trying it out.