The ON-EXIT operation code begins the ON-EXIT section. The ON-EXIT section contains code that runs every time that the procedure ends, whether it ends normally or abnormally. The ON-EXIT section runs under the following conditions:
- The procedure reaches the end of the main part of the procedure.
- The procedure reaches a RETURN operation.
- The procedure ends with an unhandled exception.
- The procedure is canceled, due to the end of the job or subsystem, or due to an exception message being sent to a procedure higher in the call stack.
By placing your clean-up code, such as deleting temporary files and deallocating heap storage, in the ON-EXIT section, you ensure that it is always run, even if your procedure ends with an unhandled exception, or if it is canceled.
As someone who likes to exit procedures as quickly as possible, this opcode has a great deal of potential when it comes to simplifying the structure of my code, and for reducing the number of things I have to think about. This is always a good thing.
ON-EXIT was introduced in version 7.2 and is well worth investigating.
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