Re: Indicators

[RPower@xxxxxxxxxx]

Not going to mention anything about the /free, currently not in use here, 
nor do I see it happening anytime soon.  Been given a directive now to 
"focus" on Java programming (lucky me huh).  As for coming in handy, you 
are right.  It is definitely much easier to use the indicators at times. 
I've just stopped using them on personal preference.  I never was found of 
the left hand indicators.  I've run across code in the past that have used 
them and I can't get past seeing  14 left hand indicators jumbled together 
to perform or not perform an action.  Find it hard at times to see just 
what is going on at a glance.  Example:
c  n99 
cann98 
cann97 
corn96 
cann95 
cann94 
cann93 
corn92 
cann91 
cann90 
cann89 
cann88 
cann87              Exsr      One

And yes I saw that once before.  What a mess that was.  So indicators used 
sparingly for small functions I can see, but like the example above, I 
would much sooner see a nice If statement using variable names that mean 
something.

Ron Power
Programmer
Information Services
City Of St. John's, NL
P.O. Box 908
St. John's, NL
A1C 5M2
Tel: 709-576-8132
Email: rpower@xxxxxxxxxx
Website: http://www.stjohns.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. - 
Sir Winston Churchill




"Michael Naughton" <michael_naughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces+rpower=stjohns.ca@xxxxxxxxxxxx
18/08/2004 01:20 PM
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RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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Subject
Re: Indicators






I've tried to stop using indicators, too, but sometimes they just seem
really handy. The other day, I came across a situation where I just
couldn't see _not_ using them. I wanted to test two 8,0 fields to see if
they held valid date values, based on either *ISO or *USA format, and if
either one of them was bad I wanted to set an error flag.

My code ended up looking like this:

 *                  Test passed date & set error flag if bad 
C                   Select 
C                   When          (PRMFMT = '*YYMD') 
C     *ISO          TEST (D)                PRMSDT                 99 
C  N99*ISO          TEST (D)                PRMEDT                 99 
C                   When          (PRMFMT = '*MDYY') 
C     *USA          TEST (D)                PRMSDT                 99 
C  N99*USA          TEST (D)                PRMEDT                 99 
C                   EndSL 
C   99              Eval      PRMERR = *ON 

The shortest non-indicator version I could come up with was this:

 *                  Test passed date & set error flag if bad
C                   Select 
C                   When          (PRMFMT = '*YYMD') 
C     *ISO          TEST (DE)               PRMSDT 
C                   If             NOT %Error 
C     *ISO          TEST (DE)               PRMEDT 
C                   Endif 
C                   When          (PRMFMT = '*MDYY') 
C     *USA          TEST (DE)               PRMSDT 
C                   If             NOT %Error 
C     *USA          TEST (DE)               PRMEDT 
C                   Endif 
C                   EndSL 
C                   If             %Error 
C                   Eval      PRMERR = *ON 
C                   Endif

which is a difference of 16 lines instead of 9. Is there a better way to
do it? Or is there some other reason why avoiding indicators in this case
is "better"? I fully agree that in many (most?) situations there are
better ways, but "most" is not "all", and I'm not sure that indicators
won't remain useful in the future. . . .

Am I missing something?

(PS: don't bother telling me that when I switch to /free I won't be able
to use indicators. I know that. If I'm forced to switch, I'll give up
indicators, but IMHO that's not a good reason. So far, I find the benefits
of /free underwhelming, and I'm a guy who has done a fair amount of
programming in Visual Basic and DIBOL -- both very free-format.)

Ron writes:
>Yes I stopped using numbered indicators a while ago, 


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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