RE: qualifying datanames

["Fisher, Don" <DRF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In my humble opinion, field names should be unique to a file.  With 10
characters available for RPG IV, you can use a 3 or 4 character prefix for
each file and still keep the names reasonably mnemonic.  You can also use
the general names in your field reference file and still have unique field
names in your files that reference the general field descriptions in the
field reference file.  In my humble opinion, this is the appropriate use of
a field reference file.

That being said, you can use the PREFIX keyword in your file specifications
to attach a unique prefix to each field like the following spec:
 FRMSPFINANLIF   E           K DISK    PREFIX(F1)

This will work even if the addition of the prefix makes the field names
longer than 10 characters.  However, I don't know how much longer than 10
characters you can go.

Donald R. Fisher, III
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Heilig-Meyers Furniture Company
(804) 784-7500 ext. 2124
Don.Fisher@HeiligMeyers.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mary Koetting [SMTP:Mary_Koetting@mail.mchcp.org]
> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 1998 12:11 PM
> To:   'midrange'
> Subject:      qualifying datanames
> 
> We're a couple of COBOL programmers converting RPG code. We standardized
> our
> datanames because we thought that was 'good'. We are used to qualifying
> datanames in COBOL and didn't think what it would do to the RPG code.
> 
> Is there a way of qualifying names in RPG IV? I think the list has already
> answered this as a 'no' but I wanted to double check.
> 
> Working on the assumption that you can't, what's the best way to make sure
> that we are getting the value of variable that we expect? Should we save
> the
> value and use the new named variable? We don't have the time or the
> expertise to change the flow of the chains/reads.
> 
> Should we rename the fields so that they are unique in each file? We hate
> to
> do this because we took great pains to try to cut down the size of the
> field
> reference file but would like to know if this is the preferred method.
> 
> For example, the field containing the social security number, should it be
> named SSNMED in the medical plan file, SSNDEN in the dental plan file,
> etc.?
> 
> Please advise. Appreciate much.
> 
> Thanks.   
> +---
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