Re: CL compiled, but I don't think it should have

Simon Coulter wrote on 16/11/2006 06:09:45 PM:

However, if the compiler won't let me do:

CHGVAR VAR(var1) VALUE(&A + myCharLiteral + &B),

There are two things wrong with that statement:
   1) Missing & from var1 (which would cause CPD0081 "Variable name 
required for parameter")
   2) + is the ADDITION operator (which would cause CPD0130 "Operands 
must be numeric for parameter VALUE"). CL ain't RPG IV ya know.

Of course you are right about that ... I just made that example up quickly 
and didn't edit it carefully for CL-ness.  I think what had me confused 
about the bare literals (no quotes) is that most of my character literals 
contain spaces and/or mixed case.

However CL will allow:
      CHGVAR VAR(&var1) VALUE(&A *CAT myCharLiteral *CAT &B)
which is consistent with its own rules.

Single quotes are only required when:
   a) The value contains special characters like spaces
   b) The value must contain lower-case characters (and CASE(*MIXED) is 
not specified)

I think point b) contradicts that first bit.  It seems to me that, if I 
understand correctly, the solution to the problem that the developer had 
(which is a variable being interpreted as a literal if the & is forgotten) 
is to use mixed case for variables.

I'm not really sure why it would let me use a non-delimited character
literal in any context in a compiled program.

Makes no difference that CL is 'compiled' in a program. CL commands 
follow the same rules regardless of where they are used otherwise you 
might have to quote all sorts of things and how ugly would that be:
   dspobjd obj('MYLIB'/'MYOBJ') objtype(*pgm) output(*outfile) 
outfile('QTEMP'/'JUNK')

I guess I figured if certain commands are only allowed in a program 
context, it wouldn't be that big  a stretch to have slightly different 
quoting rules too.

Thanks for the detailed response,
Adam

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