Re: Alternative to MOVEA?

["Richard B Baird" <rbaird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike,

it sounds like the only reason you are using an array is for doing this
operation - something that is no longer needed in rpgiv with the new string
handling bifs.  You could do your string replacements with them instead.

try something like this:  - I could be wrong on %size() - might be %len()..

eval $x = %scan('*':field)
eval $y = %size(field)-$x
eval %substr(field:$x+1:$y) = *all'X'



rick

--original message--
Mike said:
<snip>
I'm trying to format a field for display on the screen -- if the user
enters a value that contains an asterisk, I want to fill out the field
with asterisks after that position before it's displayed again. This is
motivated as much by trying to make things really clear for
fumble-fingered users as any other real "need" to go this route, but in
this situation it seems to work pretty well.

Right now, I just define an array overlaying the field, search for an
asterisk in the field, and then do MOVEA on the array. To me, this seems,
well, just a whole lot slicker than the "for" loop. I admit that cryptic
code sometimes is hard to understand, but as a former DIBOL and VB
programmer I have come to appreciate some of the brevity that RPG/400
offered. (At the same time, I _really_ missed some of the features of
those other languages that we didn't get until RPG IV -- that was (is) a
great enhancement, and I love it. But I still like using MOVEs to put
characters into decimal fields and vice versa -- I know I could use data
structures or atol() or %EDITC, but MOVE is simple, and it works. And now
I have this MOVEA thing. . .)