Re: text equation

Eric,

>I never used REXX, do you have exemple or a good way to learn what I can do
>with it.

I don't use it either -- but it is what you may want to use in this
case.  REXX is included on every system as part of OS/400 so your
machine will definitely be able to support it.

REXX is interpreted and will let you do things like take strings with
expressions and evaluate the result.  In the sample programs appendix
of the REXX/400 Programmer's Guide is this example of a program which
does something similar, but displays the result instead of returning
it.  I *think* you may be able to change "Exit" to "Exit i" to have it
return a string with the result, then drop the "Say i" instruction.
You could also add a NUMERIC DIGITS statement to set the precision (or
even accept the precision as an argument), or use FORMAT() to get the
result variable i with a fixed number of decimals, etc.

Anyway, quoting from the REXX/400 Programmer's Guide (V3R7):
 
SAY:  This program is a simple REXX example that evaluates the
argument passed to it and displays the result.  This program displays
this description if called with a parameter of '?' or 'help'.  If the
expression is not a valid REXX expression, this program will issue a
message saying so.  You can add REXX instructions to the expression,
by using a semicolon as a delimiter.
 
  Parse Arg rest   /* Capture the argument (in mixed case).*/
  /* If the argument is ? or help (in upper or lower case),*/
  /* then display the prolog comment.                      */
  If rest=? | translate(rest)='HELP' Then
     Do i = 1 Until Sourceline(i) = '*/'
     Say Sourceline(i)
     End
  Else
     Do
     Signal on Syntax         /* Catch not valid expressions.*/
     Interpret 'I =' rest;    /* Evaluate the expression.  */
     Say i                    /* Display the result.       */
     End
  Exit
 
  Syntax:
   Say 'Sorry, that argument was not a valid REXX expression.'
   Say 'The error was:' Errortext(rc)    /* rc gets set to the error
*/
   Exit                               /* number.  Errortext returns */
                                      /* the error message for a    */
                                      /* given error number.        */
 
 

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