Re: Is there anyway to change a PI and not re-bind?

[Buck <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Alan,

> Whoa. Barbara, so this means I can add 
> all the parameters I want to my heart's
> content to the already previously existing
> procedures in a service program without
> messing things up at the signature level?
> (In my case I name the signatures myself).

Absolutely.  I've been doing this for years.  The trick, as Barbara 
mentioned is to use *NOPASS, and then in the body of your subprocedure, 
check to see if the caller passed the parm or not.  If not, you probably 
need a default value.

Be careful NOT to use a *NOPASS parameter directly in your subprocedure 
though, because if the caller didn't pass it, you _might_ have an 
address in the stack at that position, and you _might_ not get an error 
message, but you'd be inspecting and perhaps changing memory that you 
shouldn't!

 *=========================================
 * create user space
p crtUsrSpc       b                   export
d crtUsrSpc       pi              n
d   i_spcNam                    10    const
d   i_spcLib                    10    const
d   o_error                           like(api_err)
d   i_text                      50    const options(*nopass)
d   i_atr                       10    const options(*nopass)
d   i_siz                       10i 0 const options(*nopass)
d   i_aut                       10    const options(*nopass)
d   i_rpl                       10    const options(*nopass)

d w_text          s                   like(i_text)
d w_atr           s                   like(i_atr)
d w_siz           s                   like(i_siz)
d w_aut           s                   like(i_aut)
d w_rpl           s                   like(i_rpl)

  // load working variables from input
  if %parms < 4;
    w_text = *blanks;
  else;
    w_text = i_text;
  endif;

...

> Also, one still needs to create a new signature
> for the new program(s) that actually use the new
> parameter, don't they?

Not following this.  The signature belongs to the service program.  I 
have signatures like this

strpgmexp pgmlvl(*current) signature('01.00 20070404')

and when I make a change, I keep signature('01.00 20070404') as *PRV and 
increment the version number.  Existing programs have '01.00 20070404' 
as their signature comparison, and so run just fine.  Newly changed 
program that use the new functionality in the *NOPASS parameter will get 
the new signature to compare against.  It's probably unnecessary, but 
it's easy for me to see what program is consuming what version of the 
service program.
  --buck