Coding Standards for Database Files › Standards for Defining Messages

Standards for Defining Messages

Use separate message files for:

• Execution messages: All messages which are sent by an application at run time as *INFO, *COMP, *ESCAPE *STATUS or *NOTIFY. Message text that is retrieved for use in programs should also be placed in this file.
• Prompt messages: Messages needed for panel, menu and command prompts.

If the default user message file ‘QUSRMSG’ is not used, then the execution and prompt message files should be called xmmmMSG, and xyyyPMT respectively, where x is the system prefix, and ‘mmm’ the application mnemonic.

Message identifiers should follow this convention:

• Message prefix (MMm) is the same for all messages in the application system. The following are reserved values:

  

The following additional convention may be used for the third letter of the message prefix, to indicate the message type. This makes it easier to identify messages for which you may monitor.

Message number (nnnn) is a number issued sequentially. IBM i messages numbers may include the letters A-F.

CA 2E provides a facility for the automatic issuing of message identifiers—a prefix may be set using the YMSGPFX model value.