Re: More on RPG style

[Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>]

David,

I think you're justified.  The important thing when doing this is to
give your procedures a descriptive name.

You've got 4096 characters to use, there's no excuse for having short
cryptic names.  Don't be afraid to use the ellipsis to create names
longer than 15 characters.
     d ORDER_AddLineItem...
     d                 pr

I often use the ellipsis even with names less than 15 characters, as I
often rename procedures during development and if the ellipsis are
already there renaming to a long name is easy.

Here's what I try to do, break the program into enough routines so
that the mainline fits on one screen (in WDSC of course).
In combination with descriptive procedure names, this allows a new
developer to easily get a handle on what the program does.   For
example:

       //
       // Mainline logic
       DoU gDisplayFileControl.exit
             or gDisplayFileControl.cancel;
         //
         // Check for existing subfile records to condition SFLDSP
         if gDtlSubfRrn > 0;
           gDisplayFileControl.displaySubfile = *ON;
         Else;
           gDisplayFileControl.displaySubfile = *OFF;
         endif;

         gDisplayFileControl.subfileDropMode = dspfSubfMode;

         Write MsgSubfCtl;
         ExFmt DtlSubfCtl;
         RmvMsgsFrmQ();

         select;
           when gDisplayFileControl.exit
            or gDisplayFileControl.cancel;
             iter;
           when UserEnteredNewCriteria();
             OpenCursor();
             LoadSubFile(READ_START);
           when gDisplayFileControl.printList;
             PrintListing();
             LoadSubFile(READ_START);
           when gDisplayFileControl.pagedown;
             LoadSubFile(READ_FORWARD);
           when gDisplayFileControl.pageup;
             LoadSubFile(READ_BACKWARD);
         endsl;
       enddo;
       //
       // End of program
       *INLR = *ON;
       return;


Tell me, what's the above?

HTH,
Charles


On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 5:44 AM, David FOXWELL <David.FOXWELL@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I tend to divide my code into subprocedures in a program just to improve readability, even when there is very little risk of that subprocedure being called from anywhere else. Each subprocedure will correspond to a specific task executed by the program.
>
> Eg,
>
>  /FREE
>
>   IF not doThis ( )
>      RETURN
>
>   ENDIF;
>
>   IF NOT DoThat ( )
>      RETURN
>
>   ENDIF;
>
>  /END-FREE
>
> In these cases I will use global variables unless not possible. That leaves me with a load of one line prototype declarations in my code :
>
> D doThis                 PR
> D doThat                 PR
>
> I've just discovered that this style seems to annoy at least one programmer who prefers to see all the code in one main procedure and does not like to see all those PR's PI's and returns, etc. Rather embarassing.
>
> Am I justified in coding in this way or am I wrongly using subprocedures?
> --
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