Re: RPG-CGI for the AS/400

["Joe Teff" <jteff19@xxxxxxx>]

>  >> And not using EXTPROC either,
>
>  You've lost me here Brad - you sound proud of the fact that you didn't
use
> protos and I don't understand why. They simplify the call, allow you to
use a
> meaningful name, support optional parameters, deal with mismatches in
length,
> etc. etc. Do you have something against them?


I used Brad's articles in MC as a basis for doing the same thing. All of the
actual calls to the APIs are in subprocedures in a service program. The
application programs now use prototypes to my subprocedures which use
a minimum of parameters and easy-to-remember names. I am teaching
other AS/400 developers to do CGI programming with RPG IV and they use
procedures like

           cgiRead( data )
           cgiCvt( data : ds : 'filename' : 'libname' )
           cgiWrite( data )
           cgiGetUser( user )
           cgiGetParms( data )

These developers don't need to know that I'm using C APIs like QtmhWrStout,
QtmhRdStin, QtmhCvtDb and QtmhGetEnv.

I also have short-cut procedures to help build HTML. For example

           cgiGetSource ( 'libname' : 'srcfname' : 'mbrname' )

will cause all records in that source member to be written to Standard Out.
This
enables me to put static HTML code in tables instead of inside programs.
It's also
easy to maintain them with SEU. I have other shortcuts like

           cgiFormTblRowInp( 'Item Number' : 'ITEM' : %EditC( ITEMNO : '3')
: '6' )

that would create html like (assuming ITEMNO contained 123)

           <tr>
           <td>Item Number:</td>
           <td><input name="ITEM" type="text" value="123" size="6"
maxlength="6"></td>
           <tr>

Joe Teff

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