Edit codes, edit words, and constant values

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ever have one of those days?

I was trying to do some work on editing numeric data.  I did a little
mocking up of the %EDITC and %EDITW BIFs, and then went on to write the
routine.  This routine determined the appropriate editing to apply
(either an edit code or edit word) by examining the DDS for a display
file, and then applied that editing to a numeric value.

It took a few hours to work out the design of the algorithm, but I got
it.  I managed to get around a couple of issues such as having to create
a decimal object on the fly with the correct precision, but I managed
all of that.  And I was all ready to go when I got a compile error.

I had this:
              Eval   edited = %editc(
                                 %dec(value:length:decimals):
                                 EditCode)

The compiler said, no no!  EditCode is not a character constant.
Constant?  Surely I read that wrong - you don't mean a literal constant,
right?

Then I read the manual:

"The constant can be a literal, named constant or an expression whose
value can be determined at compile time."

So, if you want to be able to dynamically choose an edit code at
runtime, you'll need one heck of a big select statement to handle the
many different edit codes.

And if you want to handle edit words, well, you can't.

>>sigh<<

Back to the drawing board.  I'm going to have to write my own editing
procedure.

Joe