Displaying field-dependent errors in the message line

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It is always considered good habit to let a program's users know what's going on. Or what failed, and why. OS/400 provides components to relatively easily display field-dependent errors in the message line (at the bottom of the screens). Surely you already have seen such messages by other OS/400 components.

There are multiple ways to provide this functionality. I'm showing the way I considered the best for me. That's my choice and doesn't have to match yours. At least it should provide a starting point for your own experimentation.

We use the following ingredients:

  • Message Files,
  • Display Files (certain statements within, that is),
  • ILE RPG Code.

For the following examples, we assume an already existing application which should not show the standard error screen when an already locked record is encountered. Instead, it should show a message in the message line and skip the record. Your current library is assumed to be the library of that mentioned application.

Message Files

Message Files are special database files. Before elaborating, let's create a message file: 

CRTMSGF MSGF(GENERICMSG) CCSID(*JOB)

Now, we populate this file with a message: 

ADDMSGD MSGID(ERR1218) MSGF(*CURLIB/GENERICMSG) MSG('Record &1 is already in use.') SECLVL('Record &1 has been locked by another user for update. Wait until the lock will be released or use WRKOBJLCK OBJ(*CURLIB/MYPF) OBJTYPE(*FILE)  MBR(*FIRST) to find out who is locking. So you can contact the user in question to close that record.') SEV(10) FMT((*CHAR 10 0)) TYPE(*NONE) LEN(*NONE)

Noteworthy stuff:

  • The &1 in the message text is a variable which we'll use later to customize this message a bit before showing it to the user.
  • The MSG is to be shown in the message line. It should give a concise description of what's going on. The SECLVL text will be shown when the user positions the cursor in the message line and presses the HELP- or F1-Key. It should provide information what to do next to probably solve the issue.

There's a system wide message file QSYS/QCPFMSG, with proper localized texts. Problem with this file is that it contains hundreds of standard messages, so it is cumbersome to find the right one.

To change and view content of a message file, you can use: 

WRKMSGD MSGF(GENERICMSG)
Conclusion
Message files enable the to have a proper place for probably longer text, because handling string literals in RPG is really cumbersome. Plus, with a message file, your application can be more easily localized for other languages without wading through all the RPG program code.

Footnotes


Weblinks

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