Re: converting string to a numeric

Can you actually see someone making the argument that an existing free
format language needed to be converted into fixed format?  If RPG had
started out as /free can you imagine people actually arguing for fixed
formatting?  Are there strong debates in other languages to convert them
into fixed format?

Rob Berendt
--
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com


|-----------------------------+-------------------------------------------|
|   "James H H Lampert"       |                                           |
|   <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx>      |                                           |
|   Sent by:                  |                                         To|
|   rpg400-l-bounces@midrange.|                             <rpg400-l@midr|
|   com                       |                             ange.com>     |
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|   07/26/2004 05:43 PM       |                                           |
|                             |                                    Subject|
|         Please respond to   |                             Re:           |
|      RPG programming on the |                             converting  st|
|          AS400 / iSeries    |                             ring to a     |
|      <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>|                             numeric       |
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> Call me old-fashioned but because indicators are such dangerous little
> suckers I'd rather see an explicit SETON or SETOFF operation.
>
> Use numeric operations for numeric operands, character operations for
> character operands, and indicator operations for indicator operands.

AMEN! And leave languages that are naturally fixed-source-format AS
fixed-source-format: if you're working in FORTRAN, for example, you can
indent all you want BEYOND Column 7, but keep the statements at or beyond
that column, and the continuations in 6, and the labels in 1-5. When a
language is designed to have a fixed source format, free-formatting the
source just makes it harder to read.

You want free-format source? Use Pascal, C, ALGOL, PL/I, LISP, Java, or
Modula-2. They're designed for it.

--
JHHL


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