When using the System Modification Program Extended (SMP/E) for software installation, the system programmer should be aware of the following: In z/OS®, the binder is the default linker program invoked by SMP/E. Because the binder handles some error conditions differently than did the linkage editor, it is possible that certain error conditions might go unnoticed during the installation process.

Binder-detected errors that could cause the linked program to fail during execution are reported with an error message and a return code 8 being passed back to SMP/E. In cases where conflicting input might or might not represent an error, a warning message and return 4 will be provided. Since SMP/E recommends that users specify a maximum return code of 8 in the linkedit utility entry in the global zone, conflicting or incomplete input to the binder might go undetected during SMP/E APPLY processing. Because the binder's default action in these error situations might be different from that of the linkage editor, the results of the installation might be different with the binder. System programmers are strongly encouraged to check all severity 8 error messages from the binder.