Re: *DATE on DSPF program -- MIDRANGE-L

At 13:09 09/16/1998 , DAvid Leland wrote:
>1)  Create a simple display file with 1 input/output date field on it.
>Place command key CA03 on it as well.
>2)  Create a simple RPG program which does the following:
>       Declares the display file
>       moves *DATE to the date data type on the display
>       does an EXFMT to the record format on the display
>       does a RETURN
>3)  Run the program.  When the screen displays, today's date should be
>in the date field.
>4)  Enter an invalid date and press enter.  The internal error checker
>will tell you it's an invalid date and require you to press the reset
>key.
>5)  Now, press the F3 key to exit the program.  You will receive RNX0112
>(Date, Time or Timestamp value is not valid.).
>
>What do you think, should the program receive this error?  When you
>answer the error with a "D", the dump doesn't have the invalid date in
>it, but the original.

Well, the reason you don't have the invalid data in your program, is that it 
never received the invalid data, so at least that far, it makes sense. Probably 
the most common reason for using CA03 is to allow the user to exit without 
validating fields. This new "feature" essentially renders the old CA03 useless. 
The fact that your program never receives the invalid data means that there is 
little that you can do to correct the situation. The only thing that I could 
suggest is maybe an error indicator on the EXFMT, or possibly an error 
subroutine to handle the RNX0112. Perhaps the developer needs to be enlightened 
by the folks who are trying to present the AS/400 as a world class computer 
without equal. This is reminiscent of the days when the user had to key an 
A/C/D because we didn't have enough memory to burn a little on the code to 
remember if we had retrieved a record or not. At our LUG meeting last week, 
John Erickson said that IBM would be trying to push us toward the client server 
paradigm. I thought at the time that "push" was a strange term to use, but 
enough "pushes" like this could certainly reduce usability to the point where a 
person would leave. Personally, I consider it a failure when a user gets the 
program message display while running one of my programs. I don't like this a 
bit. At least in conjunction with DDS field validation, I'd consider it a fatal 
flaw in the implementation of display dates.

Pete



Pete Hall
peteh@inwave.com 
http://www.inwave.com/~peteh/

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