RE: Need help with a service program

John,

I have worked with Aldon before. When you change a service program in your development area by checking it out and compile/create it in DVP, you can view the signature(s) for the service program (using DSPSRVPGM command) in that environment after a successful compile. If the signatures in the development environment match exactly to what is listed in production, then in most cases (98%+) you will be fine. If you are changing an export and use *SRCFILE, you should see the new current signature that is created, along with all of the prior ones [displays 1 and 9 of the DSPSRVPGM command].

As you promote the service program through your other environments, examine the signatures after every promotion, and you will see if there was a change. Also, as you promote a service program through the environments, test one or two programs that reference the changed service program to make sure you do not get Signature Violation errors.

If you tell Aldon to promote and recompile all related objects, then you should not receive the Signature Violation. If you do not recompile related objects, then testing some programs that reference the service program [in an environment other than Production] allows you to address any Signature Violations at that time before the final promotion to Production.

Hope this helps.

Doug