Re: New parameter needed for a subprocedure

[Rory Hewitt <roryhewitt@xxxxxxxxx>]

All,

All my procedures have a return value, but often it's just a rc (return
code) with a value of 0 for success or -1 for failure. Frankly, I
*hate*procedures which don't have
*some* means of telling their caller whether they succeeded or not. A
different matter, though

But anyway, I use both input and output parameters for procedures. Some of
those are built like the IBM API's, with a data-structure interface. Some
just use a random mix of input , output or I/O parameters. Depends on who
wrote the original procedure, when and why, and how much it's been changed.
I have, however, change some of my frequently-called procedures which return
a string to return a smaller string (say 100 bytes rather than 65535 bytes)
for the sake of performance. I coded them with a 65535 return value for
'flexibility', but the performance hit was sometimes noticeable...

Ah, this is like the subroutines vs. subprocedures debate. There's no
'absolutely right' or 'absolutely wrong' answer - ease of use and
performance play their parts as well......... Good times!

Rory

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 12:16 PM, James Perkins <jrperkinsjr@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> I too agree with Kurt and Scott, at the same time I prefer the use of and
> do
> use return parameters more. There are some cases when it just makes more
> sense to use the output parameters.
>
> A good example I think would be reading an IFS file.
>
> fd = openFile('/somedir/somefile.txt');
> dow (readFile(fd : %addr(string) : %len(string)) > 0);
>  // do something with the string
> enddo;
>
> It make more sense to me to have the return value pass back the buffer
> length rather than the string. Passing back the string, how would you know
> then the file is complete? You could pass back a blank or an arbitrary
> string, but 0 is always 0.
>
> Just my opinion though.
>
> --
> James R. Perkins
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