Re: DOW vs DOU

Booth,

In a message dated 97-05-25 18:10:25 EDT, you write:

> You just hit a sore spot with me   -  I agree completely with you,
>  actually.  The sore spot has to do with indicators in general.  01 through
>  99 is limiting.  Yet IBM has never really provided a standard programmer's
>  alternative.  I've thought there could have been a logical data type that
>  could be declared, or something like that.  (I am a bit hazy about it  - 
>  that's why I wish they'd have dealt with it.)   But if we could declare
>  our indicators in the new D specs, and their purpose, then we could use
>  them in the same exact fashion as 01 through 99 in place of *INxx.  

Actually, I don't find 99 indicators to be limiting anymore, unless I have a
VERY busy screen with lots of conditioned attributes.  I rarely write a batch
program these days that has more than two indicators, and one of those is
*INLR.

>  Something like:
>  
>  D  CRok           I           IND           (IND is for "logical
>  INDicator") D* CRok = *ON = the indicator for "customer's CRedit is ok"
>  
>  See what I mean?  Of course that's easy to duplicate but 50 programmers
>  will each have their own version.

The BPCS application does this after a fashion (in standard RPG/400 no less).
 During initialization, you set any constants (prefixed with W0, user
variables prefixed with W9) and then check for them later in the code as
follows:

C                    *INZSR      BEGSR
C                    *LIKE        DEFN          *INLR        W0CROK
C                    *LIKE        DEFN          *INLR        W9CROK
C                                    MOVE         *ON           W0CROK
C                                    ENDSR
<process>...
 *  If balance < credit limit, set credit OK
C                    W9BAL     IFLT             W9LIMT
C                                    MOVE          *ON          W9CROK
C                                    ENDIF
C                    W9CROK  IFEQ            W0CROK
C<process>
C                                    ENDIF

Of course, the AS/Set CASE tool (which BPCS is written in) doesn't make it
this pretty, but you get the idea.

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@AOL.COM

"As for butter vs. margarine, I trust cows more than chemists." -- Joan
Gussow
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