Enhancing Application Tracking with an RPGLE Service Program
In today's fast-paced IT environments, understanding the flow of processes within your applications is crucial for both troubleshooting and optimization. One of the key aspects of this is identifying who or what is initiating calls within your application. In RPGLE, capturing the name of the caller of the application can provide significant insights and add tremendous value to your overall system management. This article will highlight the value of an RPGLE service program that captures the caller's name.
Why Capturing Caller Information is Important
Understanding who is invoking your application or which part of your system is initiating specific processes can help in several areas:
1. Enhanced Debugging:
When an issue arises, knowing the exact caller of a procedure or service can drastically reduce the time spent
on debugging. Instead of tracing back through logs or multiple layers of code, the caller’s information provides
an immediate starting point for investigation.
2. Audit and Compliance:
Many industries require detailed auditing of system processes. Capturing the caller's name ensures that you can
log exactly who initiated each action, which is critical for compliance and auditing purposes.
3. System Optimization:
By tracking callers, you can identify patterns in system usage. This allows you to optimize resource allocation,
prioritize critical processes, and manage system performance more effectively.
4. Security Monitoring:
In some cases, unauthorized or unexpected access to certain procedures can be a security red flag. By capturing
caller information, you can monitor and respond to potential security threats in real-time.
How to Use the jscallstk Service Program
1. Source Code Placement
Ensure the following setup:
- The source code QPROTOSRC/jscallstk must be placed in the QPROTOSRC source member.
- The source code QRPGLESRC/jscallstk must be placed in the QRPGLESRC source member.
- Both source members should reside within the same library.
2. Purpose
The QPROTOSRC/jscallstk member is used within QRPGLESRC to copy the necessary
declarations and parameters for the application to function as a service program. This is achieved by binding
the /copy directive during the compilation process.
Additionally, the QPROTOSRC/jscallstk source code is utilized by RPG applications that require
this service program.
3. Compilation Instructions
Step 1: Create the Module
CRTRPGMOD MODULE(*CURLIB/jscallstk) SRCFILE(*CURLIB/QRPGLESRC) SRCMBR(jscallstk) DBGVIEW(*SOURCE) REPLACE(*YES)
Step 2: Create the Service Program
CRTSRVPGM SRVPGM(*CURLIB/jscallstk) EXPORT(*ALL) ACTGRP(*CALLER)
Note: The *CURLIB is used as the default library in this example. You may specify any
library where you want the objects to be stored.
4. Binding Directory
Once the service program is created, it should be added to a binding directory. For example, I use JASTOOL as my binding directory. You can use any binding directory that suits your needs.
ADDBNDDIRE BNDDIR(*CURLIB/JASTOOL) OBJ((jscallstk))
Use Case
To call the Get_Caller function, provide the following parameters:
- Pgm Stack Position (optional): Position of the Pgm in the stack. Default is 3
- Debug (optional): *on if you like to see where the pgm location in the stack.