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I guess I don't see the need for the H-spec - Jon has posited that it is sufficient to test positions 6-7 - if there is a C in position 6, it is a C-spec - maybe that'd be enough. And maybe it's enough to test for // anywhere for comments and blanks in 6-7 for various free-form syntax, whether C or other kinds of specs.

The other issue is opcodes for which there is no free equivalent - the SCAN opcode already mentioned does have functionality that is still useful, seems to me.

Has there been a comprehensive document giving the free-form ways to accomplish what the various non-free opcodes do? Like how do you do all the things the MOVEx can do - just what examples are there of that? Then we could make snippets of them all - hey- maybe IBM could make such snippets - and use those.

Vern

Simon Coulter wrote:
On 12/01/2010, at 1:27 AM, Vern Hamberg wrote:

Using subprocedures - in fact, this might be better justification for
making everything free.

Ah ... I was thinking of multiple occurrences of /FREE and /END-FREE within the body of C-Specs; not just at the start and end of each block of C-Specs. I don't find coding /FREE and /END-FREE around a procedure body particularly onerous or ugly but I certainly wouldn't mind if I didn't have to do that.

The solution is not a fully free-form RPG but rather an H-Spec that indicates all C-Specs will be free-form e.g., CSPEC( *FIXED | *FREE ). *FIXED is the default and gives current behaviour. *FREE simply implies /FREE before the first C-Spec and /END-FREE after the last C- Spec. The first C-spec is the occurrence of a line where columns 6 & 7 are empty and a valid op-code is found. The last C-Spec of a group is given by the occurrence of a specification identifier.

The compiler can add the /FREE and /END-FREE while reading the source to make parsing easier.

Further, this H-Spec keyword should not preclude the user adding /END- FREE and /FREE as required if they need to drop out of free-format for some operation. This would be similar behaviour to file open handling. Even without USROPN I can CLOSE and OPEN a file.

Thus:

H CSPEC(*FREE)
H DFTACTGRP(*NO) ACTGRP(*CALLER)

D proc1 PR 5I 0
D parm1 10 CONST OPTIONS(*NOPASS)
D proc2 PR 5I 0
D parm1 10 OPTIONS(*OMIT)
D proc3 PR 5I 0
D parm1 10 OPTIONS(*NOPASS:*OMIT)

CALLP proc1;
CALLP proc2(*OMIT);
CALLP proc3;
EVAL *INLR = *ON;
RETURN;

P proc1 B
D proc1 PI 5I 0
D parm1 10 CONST OPTIONS(*NOPASS)
IF %PARMS > 0;
ENDIF;
/END-FREE
C NEEDLE:X SCAN HAYSTACK:Y FOUND /FREE
RETURN 1;
P proc1 E

P proc2 B
D proc2 PI 5I 0
D parm1 10 OPTIONS(*OMIT)
IF %PARMS > 0 AND %ADDR(parm1) <> *NULL;
ENDIF;
RETURN 2;
P proc2 E

P proc3 B
D proc3 PI 5I 0
D parm1 10 OPTIONS(*NOPASS:*OMIT)
IF %PARMS > 0 AND %ADDR(parm1) <> *NULL;
ENDIF;
RETURN 3;
P proc3 E


In fact, I thought something similar had already been proposed for RPG.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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