Re: More on RPG style

No, you're right. It's an evolutionary process.
First there was subroutines, and they were ok.
And a branch off of the evolutionary ladder was called programs, if you
came from the S/36 family tree you can remember NOT having them.
Then there was subprocedures and they are good. Local variables and
making your own bifs are good. Being able to pass in a number of
variables and getting a return variable helped to clarify.
Then there was service programs. Move your subprocedures to there (might
want to dispose of those global variables). This allows you to get the
modularization of called programs but keep the bif type look and other
advantages.

Besides, I find this more readable
setll myfile;
dow ReadMyfile();
// process row
...
if recid<>'A';
iter;
endif;
EndDo;

Than
setll myfile;
read myfile; // priming read
dow not %eof(myfile);
// process row
if recid<>'A';
iter;
endif;
read myfile;
EndDo;

That, and the second example has an infinite loop while the first doesn't.
And, if you want to move the recid <>'A' logic into ReadMyfile you could.
And, if you wanted to have ReadMyfile get data from other files, like if
your reading a transaction file and you wanted to bring in the customer
name upon a break, you could.
Or, if you wanted to handle some really rare exceptions you could, like if
there was an error from a mythical before read trigger.



Rob Berendt