Handling errors when calling programs

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When a program dynamically calls a separately compiled program, the called program might be unavailable. For example, the system might be out of storage or unable to locate the program object. If the CALL statement does not have an ON EXCEPTION or ON OVERFLOW phrase, your application might abend.

About this task

Use the ON EXCEPTION phrase to perform a series of statements and to perform your own error handling. For example, in the following code fragment, if program REPORTA is unavailable, control passes to the ON EXCEPTION phrase.


MOVE "REPORTA" TO REPORT-PROG
CALL REPORT-PROG
  ON EXCEPTION
    DISPLAY "Program REPORTA not available, using REPORTB."
    MOVE "REPORTB" TO REPORT-PROG
    CALL REPORT-PROG
    END-CALL
END-CALL

The ON EXCEPTION phrase applies only to the availability of the called program on its initial load. If the called program is loaded but fails for any other reason (such as initialization), the ON EXCEPTION phrase is not performed.