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  1.  Home
  2. RPG400-L
  3. July 2004

Re: converting string to a numeric

James H H Lampert wrote:
I have to back Hans up on this one, sub stringing numbers is ludicrous. 


I'm afraid I have to side with Joe. But I do think the MOVE and MOVEA
statements ought to have come with some sort of "pad" or "fill" option.
Rather like the CPYBLAP and CPYBRAP opcodes in MI, vs. CPYBLA and CPYBRA.

Actually, MOVE(P) and MOVEL(P) have been supported for a long time. It was added to RPG/400 well before RPG IV.


And I stand by my assertion that free-source-format languages should
remain free-source-format, while fixed-source-format languages should
remain fixed-source-format, because imposing an unnatural source format on
a language (rather than creating a derivative language in which the new
source format is natural) really screws up readability.

One problem is that the traditional fixed-format syntax can't be readily extended. There's not a whole lot you can do with 14 character wide factors. Just look at the goofiness involved in squeezing more than three operands into some opcodes like XLATE and SCAN! The "Extended-Factor-2" opcodes alleviated that somewhat, but then you still were limited to ~45 characters, which meant that you often had to continue over multiple lines.

The two main reasons free-form calcs were added were: 1) to provide a more flexible path for future language enhancements; and 2) to demonstrate fully that there *was* indeed a future for the language.


And may I bring up another assertion: there is no such thing as a
programming language that is ideal for ALL purposes. And there never will
be. So we should all learn as many languages as we can, and study their
strengths and weaknesses, and learn to develop mixed-language
applications.


I agree 110% with that!

Cheers! Hans


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