This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).
We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:
Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,
Post an idea.
Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.
Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.
Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.
IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.
ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.
Any solution, with or without adding a new keyword, that allows the use of a Ds on multiple files will be a blessing.
Thanks!
IBM will use this Idea as input to planning, but no commitment is made or implied. This Idea will be updated in the future if IBM implements it. IBM will use votes and comments from others in the community to help prioritize this Idea.
However, if this Idea is implemented, it is very unlikely that the compiler would simply relax the rule about requiring the external name of the file to match the external name of the data structure. It is more likely that additional syntax would be needed to allow a data structure for a different file. Possibly an extra keyword for the DCL-F to associate the record format for a logical file with the physical file format.
-IBM Power Systems Development
Thanks for your prompt answer.
The problem is that FILEA01L and FILEA02L are not the same file , they share the same format, are based on the same PF but Keys and Include/Omission are diffrent.
I hope you will reconsider your conclusion or suggest a different way to handle the problem.
When two files in the RPG source are based on the same file, you can use the LIKEFILE keyword to specify that the second file is the same as the first file.
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/latest?topic=filename-rules-likefile-keyword
Dcl-f fileA01L keyed usage(*input) block(*yes);
Dcl-f fileA02L likefile(fileA01L);
The data structure would be defined using the filename from the standard DCL-F definition. It could be used for any file defined with LIKEFILE(fileA01L).
Dcl-ds fileaDS extname('FILEA01L' : *input) qualified inz(*extdft) End-ds;
Since the LIKEFILE keyword causes the record formats to be qualified, there is no need for a RENAME keyword for the second file. To use the record format of the LIKEFILE file, you qualify the format by the file name: fileA02L.FILEA. To make your coding for both files consistent, it would be a good idea to add the QUALIFIED keyword to fileA01L too. so you would qualify fileA01L.FILEA too.
So now your code would look like this.
Dcl-f fileA01L keyed usage(*input) block(*yes) qualified;
Dcl-f fileA02L likefile(fileA01L);
Dcl-f fileA03L likefile(fileA01L);
Dcl-ds fileaDS extname('FILEA01L' : *input) qualified inz(*extdft) End-ds;
If y=1;
chain x FILEA01L fileaDS;
ElseIf y=2;
chain x FILEA02L fileaDS;
ElseIf y=3;
chain x FILEA03L fileaDS;
EndIf;
if %found();
// Use a common logic based on the Ds fileaDS.
EndIf;
-IBM Power Systems Development