Re: Common Display File (Header + File-level Keywords)

Sarah Kemp wrote:

I'm really struggling with the limitations of DDS. I did see this
preprocessor: http://rpglanguage.biz/copybook.html. Not being very
familiar with iSeries terminology, it sounds like it might be
capable of allowing a /COPY in my DDS. Has anyone had any
experience with something like this?

There is no native include functionality for DDS. You can roll your own
by creating a DDS preprocessor like the one in your link or base it Alan
Campin's COMPILE RPG preprocessor. http://www.think400.dk/downloads.htm

Booth Martin wrote:

The same energy you will need to fake the green screen into thinking
it is modern can be pointed in another direction. A direction that
many of us wish we were smart enough to go.

This a good, rock-solid platform. Why not use the platform and
scrap the 5250 solutions? Go straight to the web browser
solutions for your casual users? It is a learning curve,
but unless I am way off base, it is doable for someone who
understand the browser world.

Sarah Kemp wrote:
It's true I'm coming from a web background. I can't remember the
last time I made a page that was actually all located in one file so
I am trying to get these green screens working with the same
flexibility. I'm looking for a combination of CSS and a PHP (or ASP)
'include', which just grabs the header file (which could have
standard config, output, and style information) and adds it to the
page. I am ok with this 'grab' being at compile time rather than
runtime, but I really don't like the idea of just having a template
that I copy and paste into each new screen... what if something
changes?

We still have RPGII rolling around this system and all new development (aside from what I am working on) is in RPG/400. I am trying to convince our main programmer that RPGIV is worth using.

I have some very old code here too. One of my favourite citations here
of late is to note the ancient matching record program that is now in
ILE RPG (program described files and all) with internal sub-procedures
(in /free!) as well as being bound to a service program.

The reason I write this is to be explicit: We don't need to completely
throw away the old stuff in order to take advantage of the new. I hope
your colleagues read this (I'll send code samples if they don't believe
it) and take heart that moving to ILE RPG is not an earth shattering
undertaking.
--buck