RE: Variable Variable names

Tony,
Don't take it personally if someone says it can't be done.
After all in virtually every case when someone says that it can't be done
(like me <g>) it really means "It can't be reasonably done today without
extensive costs and time commitments given today's technology."  After all
this is software and we all know software can be written to do whatever it
is told to do. 

-Bob Cozzi
www.RPGxTools.com
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
- Mario Andretti


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Tony Carolla
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 11:59 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: Variable Variable names

Yes this is possible, but very, very complex.  I would explore any
other way of doing it before attempting the following, but after
reading all of the 'it can't be done' statements, I just can't help
but post this.

What if you wrote an RPG service program that had a function that
accepted a parameter of a field name, used the QteDumpModuleVariables
API to retrieve all variables for the program, parsed through the
results and searched for the field name requested, returned a pointer
to the field in memory, and also, returned a variable indicating the
type of data.  This could then be placed in the correct field type by
the program.  You could return text data into a variable length field,
and numeric into a LARGE variable (20i or something).

I am not sure about the service program thing, because the program
that contains the variable has to have a current call stack entry. 
The program would have to be compiled so that is contained debug data
(DBGVIEW), but the program does not have to be in debug data.

This would be a pretty complex undertaking, and other means might be
less complex, but I had to post this idea.  I just take it personally
when somebody says "It can't be done".  ;-)


On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:27:38 +0100, PAPWORTH  Paul
<Paul.Papworth@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Does any one know if it is possible in RPG (or any other i_series)
> language to do the following
> 
> Ws_work_zone = %pgmvar(var)
> 
> %pgmvar would be a function which would allow you to get the contents of
> a variable , whose name is contained in a variable.
> 
> Eg if in my imaginary function var contains the name of a field  'FRED'
> ,  and FRED contains 'ABC' ,  I would end up with 'ABC' in ws_work_zone
> 
> Many thanks in advance
> 
> --
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