RE: Problem with prototyping main procedure

[Scott Klement <klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Joe,

> Thanks Scott.  This makes sense, for the most part.  It's just not very
> intuitive, at least to me, to put in my program an EXTPGM reference to
> itself.  <shudder>

Yes, that seems to bug just about everyone who uses it. :)

However, you have to keep in mind that the concept behind a prototype is
to write it once, put it into a /copy member, and then use it everywhere,
since it makes sure that the parameters match what the program is
expecting.

Once you have it in a /copy member, and you're using the prototype to call
it from other places, suddenly the EXTPGM makes sense.

But, I do agree with you.  I often wish that the prototype was optional
for the main procedure.  I don't often need to call an RPG *PGM object
from another RPG.  (If I was going to call it from another RPG, I'd
have made it a service program in the first place!)  Having to code the
PR, only to call it from a menu or a CL batch program seems more than a
little silly -- especially since you have to hard-code the program name in
the EXTPGM statement.

But, since I can see why they did it, I don't complain. :)