Re: Advantages of RPG

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am not sure I understand the issue? In RPG I would use an F-spec for
each file I want to use. There is no more to it than that, so far as I
understand your question? The fields from that file are then available
to use as you wish.

Is there any language that just knows what files you want to use, with
no need to define, open, or close them? ?

sure, just create a class for each file. Then have methods for each
class for reading, writing, positioning in the file. And properties
for each field in the file.
CustMasterFile cm = new CustMasterFile( ) ;
cm.Chain( key1, key2 ) ;
Console.Write( "Customer name: " + cm.CustName ) ;

In your class you could code a Dispose method that would close the
file. The "Chain" method could automatically open the file. In C# the
"using" statement calls the Dispose method at the end of the using
block of code.

this code would automatically open and close the file for you:

using( CustMasterFile cm = new CustMasterFile( ))
{
cm.Chain( key1, key2 ) ;
Console.Write( "Customer name: " + cm.CustName ) ;
}