RE: Prototyping printf()

[Joel Fritz <JFritz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You're right about the strong vs weak typing.  That's what gives the string
data type its ambiguity.  You can assign a string literal to a string
variable even though it's really defined as a pointer to character, for
example.  I assume that's what makes the argument list in printf() so
"flexible."  The interesting (?) thing is that C data types are associated
with data types while RPG pointers are what they call "void" in C.    

C++ is strongly typed only if you agree to abide by the rules.  There's
nothing to prevent you to write code that violates every rule of OOP using
C++ syntax.  I have a book at home that I bought about 8 years ago that
purports to be about C++ that provides a fine example of this.  One of the
abominations in this book was the use of the printf() family in place of the
iostream stuff.  I wonder, and I haven't written anything in C or C++ since
I took up RPG a while back, if you couldn't write something that would work
for RPG that used C++ I/O.  That would be almost as much work as the
workaround of an infinite number of prototypes for printf().  (Poetic
license, OK?) 

BTW, the MOVE opcode lets you get around a lot of the strong typing.  I've
never moved a character into a numeric or vice versa myself, but...<g>  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Jackson [mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net]
> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 12:32 PM
> To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: Prototyping printf()
> 
> 
> Joel:
> 
> The issue is more like "strong vs weak typing".  RPG is 
> strongly typed.  C
> is weakly typed.  C++ is strongly typed ... is there a way to 
> perform printf
> in C++ that is analogous to what Simon wants to do in RPG?
> 
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