RE: What bugs you about KLISTs in RPG IV?

["Dan Bale" <dbale@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hans, I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by your
involvement as an official IBM representative seeking our
opinions on things RPG!  (This is my third week on the
list.)  This is in contrast to the "ivory tower" image of
the IBM development labs I have had in the past.  I know
that IBM has involved customers in helping develop products,
but sometimes I wondered about these customers.  You know,
the official IBM line, "Our customers tell us...", but what
they "told" you was nothing along the lines of what I would
have said.  Just who were those "customers"?   Anyways....

>>...the key fields are somewhat awkward on the D-Spec.  For
>>example, you can also code indexed arrays, which are not
>>allowed today in positions 7-21 of the D-Spec.

It seems to me that indexed arrays as KFLDs, though
"allowed", are a good example of bad coding techniques.
I have long been in the habit of using the database's key
fields' names as the KFLD names.  In any case, backward
compatibility shouldn't be an issue as long as you continue
to support the KLIST/KFLD calculation op codes.

>>Someone raised the idea of a "KLIST Data Structure".  That is
>>an interesting idea which I'll pursue further.   But, I don't
>>think it would be able  to fully replace the functionality of
>>of the KLIST.

Sounds like the same problem would exist with the indexed arrays.

>>One person came close to another idea that we've been playing
>>with here in the lab.  As you know, there are rumors floating
>>around about a new free-format calc spec.  Let's assume for a
>>moment that these rumors are true.

HEY, HEY!!!  Is it Christmas, yet?  (Sorry, got the best of me
there.)

>>Imagine for a moment:
>>     cf  chain (custno: acctno: date) mastfile
>>or even:
>>     cf  chain (prodno: 'X' + subcode(n+14)) mastfile

>>In other words, full expressions coded directly as key fields
>>for the keyed I/O operations!

That would be a beautiful thing!

>>Would you take advantage of this if available?
Is the pope Catholic?

>>Would you still use KLISTs?
Do pigs fly?

- Dan Bale





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