After all the macro replacements have been done, any macro updates present can be scheduled. Again, multiple SYSMODs may contain updates for the same macro. When two or more updates to the same macro are being processed concurrently, SMP/E merges the text from each update based on the sequence numbers in columns 73 to 80. The order of the merge is based on the processing order expressed by the PRE operands on the ++VER statements or by internal defaults, or both, as follows:

• If SMP/E finds a processing order relationship between all the SYSMODs being processed, the merge occurs according to that order.
• If any of the SYSMODs being processed do not have a processing order relationship with other SYSMODS that do have a processing order, the updates from the unrelated SYSMODs are merged after the updates from SYSMODs that have a processing order relationship.
• If SMP/E cannot determine the processing order of the SYSMODs, it merges the updates for PTFs first, APAR fixes second, and USERMODs third. Within each type, there is no specified order.

SMP/E then calls the update utility to perform the actual target library updating.

The library to be updated is determined from the SYSLIB information in the target zone MAC entry. For more information about how SMP/E determines the MAC SYSLIB, see Macro replacements. If no SYSLIB is present, the SMPMTS is used as the target macro library. For further information about the use of the SMPMTS as a target macro library, see Use of the SMPMTS and SMPSTS as target libraries. If there is no SYSLIB and the macro does not exist in the SMPMTS, the macro is obtained from the distribution library and then updated. Upon return from the update utility, SMP/E issues a message indicating whether the update was successful.