Re: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?

Hi Peter,

Yes... and No.

Your example works because the continuation takes place at the end of a
complete token; in this case - the last closing parentheses.

If the break took place within a literal, then you would need to add a "-"
or a "+". The "+" would cause continuation to start with the first non-blank
character of the continued field(s), whereas the "-" starts at the first
available position and includes the blanks.

ie:

eval  a = %substr(c:1:5) + 'My
         text'

would not work, but

eval a = %substr(c:1:5) + 'My+
         text'

would.

The rules are different yet again for continuation that involves names. You
need an ellipsis on the end.

ie:

Eval              ThisIsAReallyLongFieldNameThat
                     DoesNotFitOnOneLine = "Mytext"

would not work, but

Eval              ThisIsAReallyLongFieldNameThat...
                     DoesNotFitOnOneLine = 'Mytext'

would.

What I would have preferred to see, rather than the semicolon on the end of
every statement, is a blank space, plus an underscore, for continuation
only. For example:


 a = _
       %substr(c:1:5) _
       %substr(d:5:10)

 a = %substr(c:1:5) + 'My' _
         + 'text'

ThisIsAReallyLongFieldNameThat _
DoesNotFitOnOneLine = 'Mytext'


I wouldn't have any objection to a semicolon being used to separate multiple
statements per line - should the compiler ever support that. Such as:

a = "A"; b = "B"


In any event, I consider this discussion a waste of time at his point. Hans
has made it perfectly clear (on the web forum) that the semicolon is here to
stay - period. From IBM's perspective, the topic is not open for discussion,
so why continue beating our heads against the wall.

Regards,

John Taylor
Canada

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Dow" <pcdow@MailAndNews.com>
To: <RPG400-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 13:01
Subject: Re: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?


> Hi John,
>
> Aren't we already writing multi-line statements with no continuation
> character and no termination character?
>
>     c            eval    a =
>     c                        %substr(c:1:5) +
>     c                        %substr(d:5:10)
>
> Note that the + sign is not a continuation character, it's a
concatentation
> character.
>
> Regards,
> Peter Dow
> Dow Software Services, Inc.
> 909 425-0194 voice
> 909 425-0196 fax
>
>


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