RE: Overloading in RPG.

["York, Albert" <albert.york@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Scott.

Your explanation helps me understand it better. It's not as complex as I
thought and I could some benefit if it's used in a logical manner.

Albert 

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Scott Mildenberger [SMTP:Smildenber@Washcorp.com]
        Sent:   Thursday, May 10, 2001 12:37 PM
        To:     'RPG400-L@midrange.com'
        Subject:        RE: Overloading in RPG.

        Albert, 

        Using your example below, why should every program that needs to use
DaysDur
        have to worry about converting to a common format.  It is just extra
code
        that every calling program needs that can be eliminated.

        Think about the '+' operator in RPG (or any language for that
matter).  It
        is performing different 'procedures' depending on the data types it
is
        working on.  It could be additon or concatenation, and if it is
addition the
        operation will be different for differnt numeric types.  Just
imagine that
        if you wanted to add two numbers you had to convert your data to a
'common'
        numeric type before/after actually performing the addition.

        As far as simplifying maintenance, if I was implementing this I
would have
        one subprogram that did the actual calculations and all the others
would
        just be shell's that did the format conversions and called the
subprogram
        that did the real work.  At least in my mind, it would be nice that
anytime
        I wanted to calculate a duration in days I just call DaysDur and
pass my
        dates, no worrrying about how the date has to be formatted and doing
that
        conversion.

        I do think overloading can be really useful in some cases, and of
course
        like any tool it can be abused.


        Scott Mildenberger

        
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