RE: Good places to use "The Cycle" in today's RPG

Jeff,

I have to disagree with your 3rd point. Are you proposing that we go back to GOTO?

Using leave or iter is good structured programming. It allows the program to exit the loop (in the case of leave) or to start the loop over (in the case of iter). It also means that someone reading the program doesn't have to look for a tag to make sure the GOTO was meant to exit the loop or start the loop over, that is inherent in the operation code. These codes are simpler and easier to understand because of how they work. With a GOTO you don't know what it does until you find the tag.

Thanks,

Marvin

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message: 3
date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 13:05:50 -0600
from: jdavis@xxxxxxxx
subject: RE: Good places to use "The Cycle" in today's RPG was->Re:
FW: Niftiest thing(s) you have done in RPG ILE or /FREE

That is a maintence nightmare for most new programmers. Lets code an
endless loop and make you figure out when I want to terminate it with the
leave.

IMHO,1 should never code an endless loop DOW 1 = 1......not very
documenting
2 Leave and Iter are limited varations of a GOTO, but not
GOTOS themselves. I can make a GOTO/TAG do the same thing as a Iter or
Leave ( would that be ok then?)

dow 1 = 1
read file
if eof
Goto End
endif
... processdata
enddo
Tag End

3 Leave and Iters just show that the programmer didn't want or
have the time to properly figure out the loop termination points


Jeff Davis
Programmer
Dental Network of America
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Oakbrook Terrace, IL. 60181
630.691.0336