Re: MAIN or cycleless programs.

Vern,

you're right, all variables declared outside any procedure are global. The diffrence between using keyword main and not using it, is wether the cycle code would be bound, if the module is made to an *entry and the unnamed main gets named (funny: why didn't they hav a a look to C, where main is named "main" - shudder).
@global variables: good practice in OO design is, to make all variables global, which belong to the state of an object. Translated to ILE RPG: put all procedures to an module, which share statefull Variables and make this Variables global (another criterium would be, if you can give the module a noun as self-declaring name) and all other variables local.

Dieter

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Vern Hamberg" <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 6:03 PM
To: "RPG programming on the IBM i / System i" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: MAIN or cycleless programs.

David

So far as I know, anything you declare outside of any procedures is
global - put them at the top, ahead of everything else.

But not having done this, I could be mistaken.

Of course, some, including me, would say NOT to use global variables.
Use parameters - that's what procedures are for. Declare what you need
at the earliest opportunity, then pass it to your various procedures.

I think some stuff still needs to be global - I don't remember what I've
run into, but something recently.

Vern

On 11/5/2010 8:39 AM, David FOXWELL wrote:

Hi,

I've just done my first program using the MAIN keyword. I have to admit that I didn't see any benefit from doing so. I particularly missed having a main procedure with all the global definitions in it. Especially the program parameters.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

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