Retrieve procedure name in the ON-EXIT section

Prior to the latest Technology Refreshes, IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11, it was not possible to get the procedure's name using the %PROC built in function in the ON-EXIT section of any procedure.

IBM explained to me that the ON-EXIT section of a procedure is another procedure, which is why they would not allow the procedure name to be returned, as it would not be what I expected.

In the latest TR IBM has provided us with a solution. There are now three versions of the %PROC BiF:

01 %proc() ; 02 on-exit ; 03 %proc(*onexit) ; 04 %proc(*owner) ; 05 end-proc ;

Line 1: The original way to return the procedure name is still valid when not in the ON-EXIT section.

Line 3: Only valid in the ON-EXIT section. Returns the name of the procedure that implements the ON-EXIT section.

Line 4: Again this is only valid in the ON-EXIT section. Returns the name of the procedure that contains the ON-EXIT section.

An example always help explains the specifics. Here an example of using the different forms of %PROC.

01 **free 02 ctl-opt main(Main) dftactgrp(*no) ; 03 dcl-proc Main ; 04 ExtremelyVeryLongProcedureNameThatIsJustTooLong() ; 05 on-exit ; 06 snd-msg 'Main %PROC(*ONEXIT) = ' + %proc(*onexit) ; 07 snd-msg 'Main %PROC(*OWNER) = ' + %proc(*owner) ; 08 end-proc ; 09 dcl-proc ExtremelyVeryLongProcedureNameThatIsJustTooLong ; 10 snd-msg 'P_1 %PROC() = ' + %proc() ; 11 on-exit ; 12 snd-msg 'P_1 %PROC(*ONEXIT) = ' + %proc(*onexit) ; 13 snd-msg 'P_1 %PROC(*OWNER) = ' + %proc(*owner) ; 14 end-proc ;

The above program contains two procedures. The first is a Main procedure, and the second is just a procedure with an exceptionally long name.

Line 4: All the Main procedure does is call the other procedure, the one with the long name.

Lines 5 - 7: Main has an ON-EXIT section. Within the section I have two statements that uses the Send Message operation code, SND-MSG, to write messages to the job log. Why did I use SND-MSG rather than DSPLY? The message string with the long procedure name turns out to be more than 52 characters, which is DSPLY's maximum length.

Lines 9 – 14: The ExtremelyVeryLongProcedureNameThatIsJustTooLong procedure just contains statements with the %PROC BiF.

Line 10: This version of the %PROC will return the name of the procedure.

Line 12: This %PROC returns the name of the procedure that implements the ON-EXITsection.

Line 13: And this %PROC returns the name of the procedure that contains the ON-EXITsection.

Having created/compiled this program, I call it. After it has completed when I look in the joblog I see:

01 P_1 %PROC() = EXTREMELYVERYLONGPROCEDURENAMETHATISJUSTTOOLONG 02 P_1 %PROC(*ONEXIT) = _QRNI_ON_EXIT_EXTREMELYVERYLONGPROCEDURENAMETHATISJUSTTOOLONG 03 P_1 %PROC(*OWNER) = EXTREMELYVERYLONGPROCEDURENAMETHATISJUSTTOOLONG 04 Main %PROC(*ONEXIT) = _QRNI_ON_EXIT_MAIN 05 Main %PROC(*OWNER) = MAIN

I have added a line space between each line to make it easier to read.

Lines 2 and 4 show the name of the procedure that implements the name of the ON-EXIT section.

IMHO this is a useful addition to the ON-EXIT as I can capture the name of the procedure even when the procedure fails.

 

You can learn more about the %PROC procedure from the IBM website here.

 

This article was written for IBM i 7.5 TR5 and 7.4 TR11.