Re: Advantages of RPG

Paul Holm wrote:

"Am I able to read and work with field(s) from
that file without creating a record structure to read the data into?
Same for any JDE, BPCS, MAPICS files."

The simple answer is yes. When you specify a file in an RPG F spec, as
long as it's not coded as USROPN (user opened), as soon as you perform any
native IO, (chain, read, readp etc) the fields are immediately available
for the programmer to use and abuse (do calcs, print on a report/screen
etc). But when using embedded SQL in RPG I typically have an externally
described data structure that mimics the DDS field definitions thereby
giving me a 'transparent' availability to the fields upon the fetch
instruction. In this sense it is definitely dynamic.

Now a really cool thing is that if you don't reference a field in the
program, and try to debug the program and try to display a non-referenced
variable, even though it is in the record read, that variable isn't
available to the debugger. That's because the compiler is smart enough to
know that an unreferenced variable isn't used and therefore shouldn't
waste memory. (How's that for preemptive garbage collection/prevention!)

(Sorry David - this post was mistakenly sent to midrange-L earlier)

Regards, Jerry

Gerald Kern - MIS Project Leader
Lotus Notes/Domino Administrator
IBM Certified RPG IV Developer
The Toledo Clinic, Inc.
4235 Secor Road
Toledo, OH 43623-4299
Phone 419-479-5535
gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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