Re: More problems w/passing data structures as parameters

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

THarteau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>       What is the best way to do this? I used the based pointer because it
> understood that it wouldn't use as much storage space.  This is my first
> experience with pointers, so I'm not really sure what I am doing :)
> 

Terri, when you define a structure in a /copy file to be used as a
template for LIKEDS, it's a good idea to base it on a pointer, to save
storage.  When you do that, you never intend to actually use that data
structure, so you will never set the pointer.  To save the most storage,
you should use the same name for every pointer that you use for this
purpose.

A name like type_definition_pointer is easy to remember for the BASED
keyword and it's easy to remember not to use it anywhere else.

(By the way, this technique isn't necessarily associated with /copy
files - it can be used whenever you want to define some type to reuse,
even with standalone fields and the LIKE keyword.)