Re: DSPF with SRCFILE(*NONE) Re: external *PRTF (was: RE: 'ILE RP G' or 'RPG IV' . What's the difference!!!)

Dave,

>As written, the whole screen is effectively a big I/O field.  Anything you
>type into it goes back to the program.  You'd have to set the right hex
>attributes at the right locations to protect constant text and allow entry
>where appropriate.  It's doable but tedious and error-prone, I would say.

I haven't tried your example.  But discrete input fields would not be
doable just by putting attributes at the right locations.  You could
place display attributes and create the visual appearance of input
fields, until you tried to use it.

Insert/delete would shift the entire remainder of the screen, Field
Exit would clear the remainder of the screen, etc.  Delete an
attribute byte and you could "join" two fields!  (An exception is
using the Write Extended Attributes (WEA) order.  These attributes do
not move with the text on the screen since they are not part of the
display buffer per se, and do not consume bytes on the screen.)

Input fields require more than just display attributes.  The data
stream must also have Field Format Words and other stuff to populate
the format table in the WS controller (or equivalent).

So you're back to UDDS (which still requires a DDS source member,
albeit short), or UIM, or DSM.

DSM is what I'd call the closest thing to "program-described" since
you don't need any additional source members.  The buffers, field
layout, constants, and everything else is defined within the program.

Doug
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