Re: still null capable

[bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx]

>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:09:34 -0400
>From: "Patrick Conner" <pwconner@charter.net>
>
> Jon.Paris@hal.it wrote:
>> Yes - but it is not as simple as that or I suspect the
>> RPG team would have
>> done it.
>
>With all the RPG team is swapped with I wouldn't blame them
>for not thinking of a small enhancement such as this on (if
>it is simple)

Sure, we would have liked to provide something like
ALWNULL(*FULL) when ALWNULL(*USRCTL) was added, but it's
not simply a matter of setting off the null indicator when
a non-null value is assigned, or setting it on when *NULL
is assigned.

Full null-value support would also involve copying over the
nullness of a field when one null-capable field was assigned
to another null-capable field.  And that would entail
disallowing copying a null null-capable field to a
non-null-capable field (or any use of the null-capable field
for its value when it happens to be null).  Full null-value
support would probably also require passing null-capable
parameters (which makes my brain hurt every time I think
about it).  There are lots of other issues, CLEAR being one
of them.

Not a small enhancement at all.  And doing just a little piece
of the step to "full" support would be wrong, in my opinion.

Barbara Morris, RPG Compiler Development

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