RE: CALLPRC parameter usage

Ok. Last question (I hope).

I understood from the manual that the system converts the parameter passed from 
the calling RPG into a temporary vatiable length field if the prototype is 
declared as *varsize.  In the calling RPG, the parameter can be declared as any 
length up to the prototype declaration. It's declared as a noraml variable, and 
If that's the case, then why can't they convert the CL variable in the same 
fashion and avoid this low-level explicitness?

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Simon Coulter
Sent: Friday, 3 March 2006 4:49 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: CALLPRC parameter usage



On 03/03/2006, at 3:20 PM, Mike Pantzopoulos - (H/O) wrote:

> I found the problem with the &RETURN parameter in midrange and got 
> that to work as well by extracting only the first byte. Is this some 
> issue with the way the compiler returns a value through the procedure 
> name that can't be mapped directly to how CL works internally?

It has nothing to do with how CL works internally. It has everything to 
do with really dumb design.

When ILE CL was created the only other ILE language was C. C has the 
rather stupid habit of widening parameters and return values. Thus 
whoever implemented the CL CALLPRC tried to be compatible with C and 
gave little or no thought to the possibility that other ILE languages 
might be callable from CL in some future release.

This problem also exists when calling CL procedures from RPG. RPG has a 
(relatively recently) provided options on the EXTPROC keyword to 
control this behaviour. CL should have provided the same set of 
options.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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