Re: Clever UNIX/C Constructs

[Jim Langston <jimlangston@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan,

In most languages when I say 
str = 'Hi there '
str = str + 'text'
str winds up being 'Hi there text'

We know from RPG, however,
it would wind up being something like 'Hi there           '
But, this is because most languages treat strings as being variable length.
Basic stores the length of the string in the first byte, C uses fixed length
strings, but uses the Null terminator.  RPG uses neither.
We can get RPG to do it closely with constructs like:
str = %trim(str) + 'text'
but then str winds up being
'Hi theretext        '
We would have to say
str = %trim(str) + ' text'

Given the examples you show, I would expect free form RPG to convert it to
str = %trim(str) + 'text'
as you state, unless they keep a record of the end of the string somewhere.

Regards,

Jim Langston

D.BALE@handleman.com wrote:
> 
> Given the examples in the survey, couldn't we just as well do this?:
> 
>     /free
>        str = str + 'text';      // append 'text' to str
>        date = date + %days(7);  // add 7 days to date
>        num = num - 17;          // decrement num by 17
>        num = num * 2;           // multiply num by 2
>        array(findStart(array:start)+offset) =
> array(findStart(array:start)+offset) + 1;
>     /end-free
> 
> Er, doesn't "eval str = str + 'text'" result in field str being unchanged?
> Presuming that the += operates the same way, it will be fairly useless for
> concatenating text to a string.  Unless they'll make it *act* like "eval str =
> %TRIMR(str) + 'text'".
> 
> Dan Bale
> IT - AS/400
> Handleman Company
> 248-362-4400  Ext. 4952
> 
> -------------------------- Original Message --------------------------
> Hi Dan -
> 
> >Maybe we should designate an anti-vote on the form?  Or say,
> >"George, take $50 of my $100 and take it away from #21, i.e.:
> >[-$50]  21  $10  Short form assignment operators += -= *= /= **=
> 
> Unlike some of the C stuff, there shouldn't be any real confusion
> interpreting evals using what is being proposed in #21.
> 
> eval field [extra operator]= expression
> 
> always translates to
> 
> eval field = field [extra operator](expression)
> 
> I'm sure that the only reason it costs $10 is because of complications if
> "field" is an array or substring or something and has expressions contained
> within it, to make sure that it is resolved only once.
> 
> Ken
> Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada, Inc.
> Opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of
> my employer or anyone in their right mind.
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