Re: when to use a function or file for information

My thoughts are the subprocedure sounds neat, however, sooner or later the
subprocedure is going to have to look up the information, unless it can be
derived from some of the provided values. So, if all the subprocedure is
doing is deciding to look in the same file, or extension files I don't
believe I'd go that route.

Charles was close to my opinion on a solution. Stop using RLA and use SQL
to access the files. Then there is no concern about record format level
checks. We did this for an internal product that had to support multiple
versions of a vendor product. Correlarry: Never use "select * from...".
Always specify the columns desired.

Where I lost Charles was in his discussion about the various logical
files. My belief is that you would not need the logical files unless you
wanted to stick with RLA instead of SQL. Then each xxxL0# could be a
revision of the underlying table and no RLA should touch the underlying
table of xxx directly.

I've seen one vendor product rename the table and use a logical named the
same as the old table to get the same record format. And all the old
stuff would continue to use the new logical. Twas a Y2K solution.


Rob Berendt