IBM Power Ideas Portal


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).


Shape the future of IBM!

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:

Search existing ideas

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 your ideas

  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

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.

Add a new idea Subscribe
Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Application Development
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 10, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Always update current user in PSDS after profile swap.

Swapping user profiles [1] is a common technique for CGi programs and other service oriented programs to make sure the program runs under the right profile. This will change the CURRENT USER in the job. The CURRENT USER is reflected in the PSDS at position 358 [2].

However, when the CGi program uses a service program, the current user at pos 358 in the PSDS of the service program DOES NOT get updated after a second profile swap. This is bad because it prevents re-use of existing service programs that rely on the current user (e.g. to store the user that last updated a record)

This is a request to always update the current user in the PSDS for every module in memory.

[1] Swap profiles with set Profile Handle (QWTSETP, QsySetToProfileHandle) API

[2] https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=exceptionerrors-program-status-data-structure

(Case TS021941281)

Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Apr 10, 2026
    Thank you for the suggestions about updates to the manual.

    The following sections of the ILE RPG reference will be updated the next time the manual is refreshed:

    - The "Subprocedure calculations" page: In the paragraph about point 1, it will mention that module-initialization values such as the PSDS are not updated

    - The "INZ" page: It will be updated with more information about INZ(*USER), including a sample subprocedure to return the current profile

    - PSDS: The "Current user profile name" will have a warning saying that the current user profile is only set once during module initialization so it is not correct if the current user profile has been swapped. It will have a pointer to the new section on the INZ page.

    - IBM Power Systems Development
    Reply
  • Guest
    Apr 10, 2026

    Thank you for the update and the workaround. I would greatly appreciate it if this issue and the workaround can be documented in the ILE manual at "Subprocedure Calculations" and the PSDS section and also explicitly mentioned it in the PSDS description of the current user field. This is unexpected behavior and it must be clear what the limitiations of the PSDS are with respect to the current user.

    Reply
  • Guest
    Apr 10, 2026
    Thank you for taking the time to submit your Idea. However, implementing this Idea is not technically feasible so it is being closed.

    Instead of using the PSDS to determine the current user profile, you could add a small subprocedure to return the current user profile.

    If you have a variable initialized to *USER within a subprocedure, it is calculated at the beginning of every call to the procedure.

    dcl-proc get_current_usrprf export;
    dcl-pi *n char(10);
    end-pi;
    dcl-s current_user char(10) inz(*user);

    return current_user;
    end-proc;

    - IBM Power Systems Development
    Reply

By clicking the "Post Comment" or "Submit Idea" button, you are agreeing to the IBM Ideas Portal Terms of Use.
Do not place IBM confidential, company confidential, or personal information into any field.