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On 29/05/2009, at 4:34 AM, Kurt Anderson wrote:

In 6.1 IBM has introduced local F-Specs which appear between the P spec and the D-spec with the PI and parms. This now pushes the parameters deeper into the procedure. It would be nice if RPG was enhanced to allow for a P-spec to house the PI (in addition to the D- spec for sake of backwards compatibility). That way we could have the parameters be the first thing in the procedure.

Why is this so different from what already happens in the mainline? Files are declared before the D-specs containing the PI for the program itself (or before the C-specs containing the *ENTRY PLIST if you're still using that method).

Look at CL. First thing you have (after comments) are your parameters if you have any. That's pretty nice. RPG once required them way down in the C-specs, then gave us the option to list them in the D-specs, which I really liked. But ultimately, if the parameters appeared at the beginning of the procedure (as they do in CL, C++, Java), I think the presentation of code would flow smoother.


You need to rethink what you're really asking for. Firstly, CL only NAMES (i.e., declares) the parameters on the PGM command. the parameters themselves are defined later in the code on a DCL command along with all the other variables used in the program. Java, C (and its derivatives) and others both declare and define parameters in the function interface (unless you adopt the ugly and rather stupid K&R convention for C).

So do you want it like CL where you only name the parameters on the P- spec and have a later D-spec to define them, or like Java where you define the parameters on the P-spec? How would the P-spec look in each of these cases? Where would any return value be defined? Currently, ALL variables in an RPG IV program are defined on D-specs unless you use the archaic support for C-spec data. You're asking that we now have two places to define procedure variables and that seems messy.

While traditional RPG programmers see no difference between variables and fields (i.e., from files) that's more a conceptual thing--it's just what they're used to and RPG terminology reinforces that. RPG, COBOL, CL, PL/1 and others have separate file definitions and variable definitions. I think that's a good thing so I would not consider separate F-specs as an argument for data definition on a P-spec. Thus files defined in one place, variables defined in one place, and parameters defined in one place.

I consider what you're asking for to be a nonsense request and you shouldn't waste IBM's time by making them reject it.


Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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