Re: more based() %addr array questions!!! found my problem:

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2002 boldt@ca.ibm.com wrote:

> Well, that was probably my fault.  From under my own unoffical-
> not-speaking-for-IBM hat (which I normally wear anyways), I regret
> adding a couple of specific features to the RPG IV language.  The
> more I think about it, the more I think adding pointers to the
> language was a bad idea.  Pointers belong in systems programming
> languages, not languages intended for application programming.

I disagree completely.  Pointers are very useful in many types of
programming.  One certainly doesn't have to use pointers now that they are
available.  I only wish RPG pointers had a type, instead of all being
void.  So I could code something like:

D my-pointer    *       10I 0

I would also love to be able to specify a pointer with type but without
size, something like:

D my-pointer    *         I

And finally (I guess I'm making a feature list - sorry) I'd love typedef:

D my-type       DS              KEYWORD(TYPEDEF)
D my-field1     *         A
D my-field2     *         I
D*
D my-pointer    *               TYPE(my-type)

So far I've been able to do stuff that approximates the above but it
hasn't been very clean.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com