Cool V5R2 courtesy of IBM(?)

Here's a simple CL program:

pgm

dcl &uint *uint
dcl &int *int

chgvar &int ( 0 )

dofor &uint from( 1 ) to( 10 )
select
when ( &uint *eq 1 ) +
dmpclpgm
when ( &uint *eq 10 ) +
dmpclpgm
otherwise +
chgvar &int &uint
endselect
enddo
return

endpgm

Rather pointless except that it uses various fancy things that IBM made available in V5R3... _and_ it compiles back to and runs on V5R2!

How? By compiling it on our *V5R4* system with TGTRLS(V5R2M0). Simple.

While looking for something (which I promptly forgot about), I noticed that the QSYSV5R2M0 library on one of our V5R3 machines was different from the library on our V5R4 system. Wondering if the implication held up, I threw together the above, made sure it 'worked' on V5R4, recompiled back to V5R2, FTPd it via savefile to one of our V5R2 systems, restored... and Voila! It worked.

Nothing earth-shattering, I know. But when you have a bunch of systems that you'd like to manage with general control procedures, this can make a very nice difference.

Am I just now learning something the world has known for years? (Wouldn't be the first time.) This is 'normal' for V5R2, right?

I've often thought that CL "internal" commands such as DO, SELECT, DCL, etc., that are only valid in compiled programs should be easier to create back-level, but I never really expected to see it.

Tom Liotta