Avoid Locked Display Files/Resetting Page Numbers

The following question (minus my editing for grammar) was recently posted on the IT Jungle Forums.

I have a display file that remains locked almost all day by users. If I want to recreate the file, I have to wait until all users log out, releasing the lock. Is it possible for me to recreate the display files while it is locked?

–Kaizad Patel

Those of us who still write and/or maintain green-screen applications (and there are a lot of us) understand Kaizad’s problem. Here’s my reply to him.

You can’t recreate the display file if someone has it open. You might be interested in a technique I’ve seen in MAPICS. When the user selects the menu option to run the program, the CL program runs CRTDUPOBJ against the display file, putting the copy in QTEMP. The RPG program opens the display file in QTEMP, not the one in the production library. Thus, there is never a lock on the display file.

Here’s another question from the forums.

How can I re-initialize the PAGNBR figurative constant used in RLU?

And here’s the answer, courtesy of RussK.

Use a controlling indicator with the PAGNBR keyword in the external print file. Whenever the record is written with the indicator on, the page counter will be set back to 1. Write the record format with the indicator off, and the page counter will increment normally. The important trick is to place the PAGNBR keyword on a source line separate from the starting position so that the indicator will only control the keyword. Placing them on the same line would cause the indicator to control whether the page number printed at all.

A             120'PAGE:'
A             +1
A 80                PAGNBR
A                EDTCDE(Z)

There is a lot of good information in the IT Jungle Forums, and there are a lot of questions remaining to be answered. Visit soon, help yourself to the insight the forums offer, and help out if you can.

–Ted

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