RE: Why no header files for RPG?

["Jon Paris" <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<snip>
Wouldn't it be nice to simply use a IBM-provided /include directive in your
program to use such things a qsort, bsearch, cpybla, open, close, connect,
accept, atoi, bind, etc...
</snip>

While I agree that it would be nice, I'm far from convinced that in and of
itself it  would help that much.

Most of the protos have already been written and can be found on a number of
web sites around the world.  But that is not what is needed.  The prototype
does nothing for you if you don't know how to call it.  For example a proto
will show a pointer being passed to supply the file name to an IFS function.
It would probably include Options(*String).  What would you pass to that?
Would you realize that you need to %Trim the field?  Would you realize that
__errno needs to be used to retrieve the error code if the API call failed?

The point I'm trying to make is that asking for the prototypes does little
for us, and besides it's too ;late - they are already all out there on the
web.

What we _do_ need is for IBM to come up with the funding for a new RPG
Redbook and to _stop_ issuing new APIs that are not documented for RPG use.

Write to IBM.  Don't waste your keystrokes writing to each other on this
list!  Write to IBM!

Jon Paris
Partner400
www.Partner400.com