Re: Missing from RPG/LE

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

David Morris wrote:
>In your examples I don't follow how a date should be "=" to a range.
>I could see IF range(dateentered: 980101: 980131), but you can do that
>today.  I think range, etc. would be better supported as new operators.
>After all we don't have %EQUAL().  It may be a problem implementing
>because someone could already have a field called "range" or "in" in a
>program.  I would like to see this done, but there are other areas that
>would be higher priority to me.

I tend to agree with David regarding the proposals for
%RANGE and %LIST.  At best, these would only save a few
lines of code in a program.

When we get down to evaluating proposals for new features
in RPG, we use more or less the following criteria:

1) Can the function be coded using existing function?
For example, %RANGE could be represented by two
comparisons.  There is not much benefit there.

2) How many people would likely use the new function?
Clearly, items that the majority of RPG programmers
are likely to use will have greater priority.

3) How much work is involved in implementing the new
function?

We certainly welcome suggestions for improvements, and
now is a good time to solicit your suggestions.  The
suggestions that have the best chance of acceptance
are those that the majority of programmers could use
and that provide some function that is very difficult
to do using existing function.  Of course, if the
suggestion is easy to provide, all the better!

BTW, here's what we expect to provide in the next
release of ILE RPG (not V4R3, but some release after
that):

- new datatypes:
  -- 1 byte integer and unsigned
  -- 8 byte integer and unsigned
  -- UCS2
- EVALR - right adjusted string assignment
- FOR - free format do loop
- LEAVESR - leave subroutine
- some enhancements to data structures
  -- OVERLAY(FLD:*NEXT) - no explicit offset needed
  -- implicit definition of subfields that have
     an overlaying subfield
  -- INZ(*EXTDFT) - initialize subfields of externally
     described data structures to DDS DFT value
- new built-in functions:
  -- %DIV - integer division
  -- %GRAPH - convert string to graphic type
  -- %REM - integer remainder
  -- %XFOOT - sum of array elements
  -- %UCS2 - convert string to UCS2 type
- some support for threads
- character variables can be up to 65535 chars long

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com
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