Pathmaker Programming Guide

Preparing Shared Code for a Pathmaker Project

Preparing for Pathmaker Application Development

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Preparing Shared

Code for a Pathmaker

Project

Often during the design of an application, functions that are needed by more than one

service or requester are identified. Ideally, code to perform such common functions

should be written only once and then shared. The Pathmaker product supports the

creation and use of shared code macros by providing the Pathmaker macro language

(and its macro expansion facility) and the ability to register macros within a

Pathmaker project.

The Pathmaker product also allows you to create and use User Conversion routines to

process data passed between a Pathmaker requester and a terminal screen.

Registered Macros Macros exist as EDIT files containing source code. The simplest example of a macro is

one that contains source code written only in a programming language such as

COBOL85. These files are equivalent to COPY library files and are invoked by

application developers in the code they write; they do not use the Pathmaker macro

language or the expansion facility. Although these files are not truly macros, they are

referred to as macros in the Pathmaker documentation.

Using the Pathmaker macro language, you can create complex macros that do use the

Pathmaker macro language and the expansion facility. These macros can:

Accept substitution parameters

Emit blocks of text

Modify text

Conditionally use text and commands

Iterate lines of text and commands

Invoke another macro, passing substitution parameters

Whether the macros you write are just COPY libraries or are complex macros, you can

use the Macro Registration screen through the Pathmaker full screen interface to

of the file containing the code, and give the macro a Pathmaker name.