Re: Cycle programs and control level breaks

I started programming in rpg on the System/3 in 1974.  Have been a
consultant since 1977.  (Ok - at work I'm known as the History Channel).  At
that time the cycle was a godsend.  As time went by it became less and less
relevant - except for report writing.  For report writing it was the best,
and as far as I can tell, remained the best until SQL data access became
dominant.  

When SQL became dominant, for efficiency, the easiest thing was to have a
bunch of structured code that could be /copied into report programs to
emulate the cycle.  The key was to read data into a data structure, test for
level breaks, do level break processing (total time), copy the data to the
regular input fields, then do detail time processing.  Worked great and
provided a consistent structure, just like the cycle did.

For those of you that still love the cycle for report writing, you can use
sql for data access and still use the actual cycle by using a "special
file".  This seems to be the best way to convert something old that isn't
mission critical. 

We probably don't do much report writing anymore and it's hard to imagine
using the cycle for anything else, but in it's day, it was the best.

Jim