Using PLIDUMP

This section describes dump options and syntax used to call PLIDUMP, and describes PL/I-specific information included in the dump that can help you debug your programs.

This shows an example of a PL/I routine calling PLIDUMP to produce a Program Environment dump. In this example, the main routine PLIDMP calls PLIDMPA, which then calls PLIDMPB. The call to PLIDUMP is made in routine PLIDMPB.

%PROCESS MAP GOSTMT SOURCE STG LIST OFFSET LC(101);
 PLIDMP: PROC OPTIONS(MAIN) ;

   Declare   (H,I) Fixed bin(31) Auto;
   Declare   Names Char(17) Static init('Bob Teri Bo Jason');
   H = 5;	 I = 9;
   Put skip list('PLIDMP Starting');
   Call PLIDMPA;

     PLIDMPA:  PROC;
       Declare (a,b) Fixed bin(31) Auto;
       a = 1;	 b = 3;
       Put skip list('PLIDMPA Starting');
       Call PLIDMPB;

         PLIDMPB:  PROC;
           Declare  1 Name auto,
             2 First   Char(12) Varying,
             2 Last    Char(12) Varying;
           First = 'John';
           Last = 'Thompson';
           Put skip list('PLIDMPB Starting');
           Call PLIDUMP('TBFC','PLIDUMP called from procedure PLIDMPB');
           Put Data;
         End PLIDMPB;
     End PLIDMPA;
 End PLIDMP;

This example is referenced throughout this section.

Consider the following when using PLIDUMP:

• Use a unique user-identifier for each PLIDUMP invocation when calling PLIDUMP a number of times in a routine. This simplifies identifying the beginning of each dump.
• A DD statement with the ddname PLIDUMP can be used to define the data set for the dump. Any data set defined by these DD statements should specify a logical record length (LRECL) of at least 300/304 to prevent dump records from wrapping. If using SYSOUT as the target in any of these DDs, specify MSGFILE(SYSOUT,FBA,300,0) or MSGFILE(SYSOUT,VBA,304,0) to prevent line wrapping.
• If you want the program unit name, program unit address, and program unit offset listed correctly in the dump traceback table, compile your PL/I program with the -debug option. The -debug option can be used with the -opt or -opt3 options. To get symbols and line information in the dump, you must compile using the -debug option to generate the .stb files.
• Generated .stb files should either be stored in the same location as the .exe, .dll or .so files. or in a location specified by the environment variable CODEWATCH_STBPATH. Otherwise the dump generated by PLIDUMP contains much less useful information.
• On Windows platforms, an additional .pdb file must also be stored in one of the concatenated directories referenced by the CODEWATCH_STBPATH environment variable or stored in the same location as the .dll it is associated with. Otherwise a S0C4 abend may occur while trying to process the call stack when running under Enterprise Server.

Using PLIDUMP to generate a dump of your PL/I routine helps to ensure portability across system platforms.