Re: your mail

Scott Klement wrote:

Just curious the reason of based keyword design in RPG.  If they are
tightly integrated, why not just allow doing the following:
%addr(myField) = myPointer;

Hmmm... I don't know why they did things the way they did them.  Maybe
Barbara or Jon would know?

I don't recall how the decision was made, if I ever knew.  I think the
choices were 
   1. use BASED(ptr) (PL/I does it this way)
   2. use some indication like your USRSTG that the storage for the
variable was not fixed. 
      (COBOL does it this way, PL/I also does it this way)
      Actually, the BASED keyword could be used for this
          D myfield       s         10a    based       
              %addr(myfield) = whatever;
              myfield = 'x';
   3. require the pointer to be specified explicitly (C does it this
way)
          whatever->myfield = 'x';

I personally find the second way to be confusing for more than one level
of pointer (equivalent of a->b->c), when I see it in COBOL code, but
that is probably just because I'm used to the first way.  The third way
would have made it extremely difficult to use based fields in anything
but expressions.