Re: Passing a Null Date to a Procedure

["Doug Palme" <DPalme@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I understand Scott and as always appreciate your input......

The issue is do I make one or two calls or create an additional object to 
use for the D spec work around....

One date will get passed in for sure from the caller, as far as the two 
other dates (which are the only ones that can truly be NULL) the caller 
really does not need that information per se.





From:   Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:     RPG programming on the IBM i / System i <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:   12/31/2009 01:43 PM
Subject:        Re: Passing a Null Date to a Procedure
Sent by:        rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx



To me, that's more of a question of "whose job is it", and less of a 
question of performance. Determine which routine SHOULD be responsible 
for supplying the date...  should the caller even know or care that 
there's a date involved?  That sort of question is how I'd decide which 
routine retrieves the record.

Sorry, I don't know enough of your environment and application to give 
you a more direct answer.

But... options(*NULLIND) does let you pass the null indicator. :)


Doug Palme wrote:
> Hey Scott,
> A thought just hit me, what if I passed in the keys for the data in the 
> original file, did a chain and then tested for the *NULLIND locally in 
the 
> procedure? 
>
> The only difference is I am adding some overhead for the file lookup 
local 
> to the procedure.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>
>
> From:   Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To:     RPG programming on the IBM i / System i <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date:   12/31/2009 12:36 PM
> Subject:        Re: Passing a Null Date to a Procedure
> Sent by:        rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> Hi Doug,
>
> You need to declare options(*NULLIND) on the prototype.  When you do 
> that, RPG will automatically pass the null indicator with the parameter.
>
> However, bear in mind that it's not possible to declare a field on 
> D-spec with a null indicator.  That means parameters passed to this 
> subprocedure have to be externally defined variables coming from 
> null-capable PFs declared on an F-spec.   That severely limits the 
> reusability of your subprocedure.  Personally I would give that a lot of 

> thought before using options(*NULLIIND)
>
>
>
> Doug Palme wrote:
> > Is there any way to define a date value in a procedure interface as 
> being 
> > null capable? 
> >
> > I have checked the reference manual and so far have come up empty 
handed 
> > on this.
> >
> > We have a file that allows for null capable dates and I have to pass 
> this 
> > value to a procedure for some processing, but it does not like the 
usage 
> > of the %NULLIND parm.
> >
> >  *RNF0342 20      3 The parameter for %NULLIND is not valid; %NULLIND 
is 
> > ignored
> >
> > *RNF0342 20    259 008812  Parameter WENDDATE for %NULLIND is not null 
> > capable
> >                            %NULLIND is ignored. 
> >
> > Suggestions?
> >
> > Douglas