RE: External Data Areas - Multiple Companies, One Program

Brad,

That's basically how I determine which file to open. I keep a data area in
QTEMP for the user as s/he logs in that specifies which company s/he is
using.

To be more specific, the original system was designed on a S/36 and uses
group file ids, such that company A uses 'A.file' and Company B uses
'B.file' so I just take the group id and build the file name.

Jerry C. Adams
When is this "Old enough to know better" supposed to kick in?
IBM i Programmer/Analyst
--
NMM&D
615-832-2730

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of B
Stone
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2019 8:30 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: External Data Areas - Multiple Companies, One Program

Could you use the LDA to set what company is open, and then open the
specific data area depending on that?

I seem to recall doing something similar at an old job... it was my
introduction to the LDA. :)

Bradley V. Stone
www.bvstools.com
MAILTOOL Benefit #6 <https://www.bvstools.com/mailtool.html>: Easily send
group emails with Distribution Lists

On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 8:18 AM Jerry Adams <midrange@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

The discussion the other day on data structures brought to mind a
problem that I have been working on regarding data areas. I used a
data area to function as a sort of "truth table" for our company. O
read it into a program to determine if the next (or following) step is

ready.

Works fine, but the owner decided that he wants to add a new company.
There
will be, I am sure, some new programs for it, but the basic back
office processing is pretty much the same. So I am modifying the
programs to access the file depending upon the company. That's relatively

easy.

The issue with the data area on disk is that I have not been able to
find a way in the manuals (that I understood, anyway) to access
different data areas. For example, a disk file can have a
EXTFILE(some-name) with USROPN that I then use to define that
"some-name" before I open the file. I cannot find anything similar
for data areas on disk.



I could, I know, just define two data areas in the program(s) and then
use the same method I'm using for files to determine which data area to

read.

But looking ahead, I wanted to make it flexible so that the next time
he sets up a new company, I will not have to go back into the program.
I could, for example, easily change it to a data file. But wondered
if there were any minimal coding changes that would accomplish the same

effect.

Any ideas/thoughts welcomed.



Thanks.



Jerry C. Adams

Do what is right because it is right, and leave it alone. -Chiune
Sugihara

IBM i Programmer/Analyst

--

NMM&D

615-832-2730



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