Re: Java/RPG examples -- JAVA400-L

On 23/11/2006, at 4:30 PM, Mike Pantzopoulos - ((H/O)) wrote:

I'm trying to immerse myself into the RPG/Java interface.

I'm trying to use an example from the ILE RPG Programmer's Guide as a
vehicle for flexing some code to understand how this functionality is
implemented.

On page 165 of the above manual is some example code (P165 Figure 77)
depicting a simple interface to the trim method of the java.lang.String
class.

I could not get the original version to compile until I added the class
keyword to the trimString prototype. The compiler was giving me the
following message:

RNF3951 30 26 002600 The CLASS keyword is required with datatypeO.

The code in bold/italics (between lines 28-29) below is what I addedand

got the program to compile - and run.

Did I do the right thing? Should the manual be updated?

Yes to both. It appears the examples are wrong. Many of the definitionsare missing the appropriate CLASS keyword.

I can't understand why the class declaration is required as a separate
keyword as it is already defined as one of the method parametersanyway.

The example prototype indicates the method returns an object but whattype of object? Without a CLASS keyword how will the compiler know whatkind of object is returned?

Is there a reason that the two might ever be different?

Yes. See one of the other method definitions in the same figure 77.They show an example of using BigDecimal to convert a String containingdigits into a BigDecimal. The conversion method is found in theBigDecimal class, the return value is also a BigDecimal, but the inputparameter is a String. The CLASS keyword is needed to define the twodifferent object types being used.

Many classes override the toString() method which returns a Stringrepresentation of the object. The String is highly likely to be adifferent object from the class containing the method.


Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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