Re: Is there a way to make %pbif's (Personal built in functions)?

Fair comment Buck. First, my experience with sub-procedures is limited, so there is confusion on my part. Bear that in mind as you try to figure out what I am asking.

I have worked with sub-procedures in different shops. One problem seemed universal. Each programmer had his own set of sub-procedures. Was there overlap? Yes. But then, not really. Each sub-procedure was just enough different that when it came time to use an existing sub-procedure, it was almost just right, but not quite. After a few years there is various libraries, various slants on the same problems, and an overwhelming pile of sub-procedures to plow through to find one that one could use in a current project.

So, I look at that mess and it seems to me that many shops lose the benefits of sub-procedures after 5 years or so, especially if there is turnover of programmers. It strikes me that this is very unlike most things IBM i. Therefore I conclude there is something I do not understand about implementing %PBiF's in a shop.

On 7/21/2016 5:28 PM, Buck Calabro wrote:

On 7/21/2016 4:05 PM, Booth Martin wrote:

Is there a way to make %pbif's (Personal built in function)? Maybe a
%%MyBIF()?

I suspect I know the answer. It seems like a natural addition but I
don't see how to do it.

As has been mentioned, write sub-procedures.
Depending exactly on what you're trying to build, you may want to look
into OPDESC support, although that isn't quite complete. I know you're
asking about a generic concept, but perhaps if you shared a more
concrete example we could suggest how to go about it.