Re: Thanks! (was: CF-Spec - another call for opinions)

Hans,

I would rather not muddy the water and have different ways of doing the 
same thing which depend on what type of line I am entering.  The 
requirement that I type EVAL or CALLP is such a minor (but consistent 
requirement), I would rather see you go with option 1.

Also, please keep in mind that some of us scan and parse code to 
enforce standards and catalog the use of literals and procedures.  You 
have the resources to interpret all kinds of weird variations.  From my 
perspective it is best if it is consistent with no variations.

David Morris

>>> <boldt@ca.ibm.com> 08/12/99 09:23AM >>>


Thanks for your responses, everyone!  The discussion
has been very useful for us, with some responses very
close to what we've come up with.

We've done a bit more brainstorming, and we think we've
hit on another alternative that we think everyone will
be happy with.  In a nutshell, we believe that we can
achieve release to release compatibility with two
changes to our design:

1) Require parens always on CALLP statements on the
   CF-Spec; and
2) Delimit opcode extenders on the CF-Spec using some
   different character other than parens, such as the
   colon.

Basically, if the first string of characters in the spec
is followed by "(", it is either an EVAL or CALLP; by
"=", it is an EVAL; otherwise, it is an opcode.

So, here's what our toy example looks like:

    CF KeepLooping = *ON
    CF dow KeepLooping
    CF    read:e MasterFile
    CF    if %eof
    CF       HandleEndOfFile()
    CF    endif
    CF enddo

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com 


+---
| This is the RPG/400 Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---