Re: Easier timeout, Re: Some fine points of dealing with Telnet jobs

James,

> There's an example in that ancient tome where an RPG
> program is tricked into thinking a display file is
> multi-device, and therefore observing its MAXRCD timeout.
> And even better, it works in ILE RPG, too.

Oh, you didn't make it clear that is what you wanted to do.  I was
under the impression you wanted to be able to know how long some
(other) telnet job had been idle, not your own.  Because while in a
DSPW state, your code won't be running to test the idle duration.

There are two basic ways of doing that:

 1) The MAXRCD timeout method you mention above
 2) Using DTAQ's attached to the DSPF

The MAXRCD method is arguably easier, and if it suits your needs that
is fine.  It does mean you have a consistent time-out value (you can
use OVRDSPF to change it from the compiled value, but while the
program runs you still have a consistent value).

The DTAQ technique allows you to dynamically alter the timeout value,
which is valuable in some circumstances.  For example, letting the
user key a duration in seconds for an auto-refresh update interval.

Doug