Re: Adding parameters to procedures

Thanks for all the input.from all concerned.

Scott wrote

This is a really bad idea. You may as well use CALL/PARM and *ENTRY
PLIST, you're throwing away all of the value of using prototypes by
passing these data structures.

When we programmed in RPGIII, all our programme calls were done by C/COPY
QCPYSRC, PGMNAME.
We seem to have come up with a solution that alows to do the same in ILE.

Your code guarantees that all callers (whether they use the new fields
or not) must be recompiled every time a data structure changes,
drastically increasing the amount of maintenance that's required.

Everytime a module containing an exported procedure is modified, our
installation application will recompile ALL the programs using that module.
The argument is that maintenance is drasically REDUCED because we don't have
to modify all the callers.

I realise that we lose the prototype checking at compilation. I'm ashamed to
say that I can't say why we are binding our calls.

Even worse, the compiler won't protect you against passing the wrong
data structure.

As for passing the wrong DS, I don't think that's a problem. It is declared
with the prototype and a calling procedure imports the prototype definition.

Why not pass individual parameters? Why do you want to pass data
structures?

Because if we have 10 callers and only 1 needs the new parameter, we don't
touch the 9 others. The compilation is automatic.

Alan wrote

Sorry but this whole concept makes my stomach turn.

I have the same gut -feeling about this as well.

But I need some more arguments.