Re: %LEN and *ZERO

[bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx]

Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:34:45 -0500
From: boldt@ca.ibm.com
Subject: Re: %LEN and *ZERO

>then Barbara wrote:
>>The obvious circumvention is to use 0, but a better one is to assign
>>the null literal '' to cmdString.

then Hans wrote:
>Well, assigning '' to the string may involve typing fewer characters
>in the RPG program, but setting the length directly generates a lot
>fewer W-Code instructions.  At no optimization, this means that
>assigning '' to the string is substantially slower.
> ...
>I really have no opinion on which is better programming style.
>Another alternative is "CLEAR cmdString;", which generates the same
>code as setting %LEN to 0.

By "better" I meant more obvious as to the intention of the programmer.
Depending on the font, I can often see almost no difference between O
and 0 (that's capital o and zero), which is why *ZERO is nice.  Maybe
'' vs ' ' has the same problem, though.  If I'd thought of CLEAR I
would have said that was the best way to code it, but I always forget
about CLEAR.

Barbara Morris


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