Compile-time and execution-time Options processing

Products

• Easytrieve Report Generator

Issue/Introduction

What options that are hard coded in the link edited program, cannot be overwritten by another execution time Options Table pointed to by a //STEPLIB and not overwritten by JCL? Are there any options that can be overwritten at execution time?

 

Environment

Easytrieve Report Generator, release 11.6

Resolution

The settings of most options are "frozen" into the Easytrieve application program at compile-time. This is because many of the options provide defaults for the language statement parameters. For example, the BUFNO option is the default value for the FILE statement BUFNO parm. Once the FILE statement is compiled, the values are fixed.

Linkedited Easytrieve applications are, (by their nature), more "fixed" than compile-and-go programs. To change their internals, the source must be modified and recompiled. This provides more stability for those large mission-critical applications which (frequently) undergo an extensive testing/QA cycle before going into production.

The only "dynamic" options are the Printer Profiles. Changes to those options will be picked up by linkedited Easytrieve application programs without the need to recompile. They would come from the EZOPTBL file that is available at execution-time.