Missing from RPG/LE

[Joe Teff <jteff19@xxxxxxx>]

I appreciate how much more readable code is in RPG/LE than any other flavor of
the language. There is one area though that I think a much better job could have
been done. I think that having a %Range and %List BIFs would really help
cleanup coding.

  I would write:

     C                                  If              DateEntered >= 980101 
and
     C                                                  DateEntered <= 980131

  Instead I could write

     C                                  If              DateEntered = 
%Range(980101 980131)

  Or I would write:

     C                                 If              ItemStatus <> 'D' and 
ItemStatus <> 'O' and
     C                                                 ItemStatus <> 'P'

  Instead I could write:

    C                                  If               ItemStatus = Not 
%List('D' 'O' 'P')

   Or, even better:

    D Deleted                               C                              'X'
    D Obsoleted                           C                              'Q'
    D Prototype                            C                              'S'

    C                                  If              ItemStatus = Not 
%List(Deleted Obsoleted Prototype)

This code would become even more readable and thus more maintainable. In fact, 
many
of the BIFs available in SQL look like good possibilities.

I really do like what has been done to the language and find that writing in 
RPG3 (aka
RPG/400) is becoming as untasteful as writing in RPG2.

Joe Teff

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