Need help with RPGIII function

Hi,

I have a display field that will be assigned a value blank or 'E' representing a certain status of a contract. The program will decide what that status will be, and when the user validates the screen, this status is displayed. The initial status depends upon dates and different contract information. If the contract is being entered within a certain time period, the user will be able to modify the status, otherwise it will be unmodifiable.

This is in an old RPGIII and conversion is not an option for me. When I suggested creating a function in an existing RPGIV module to handle this, I was told to pass the dates and contract information and return the value of the status field as a parameter and another parameter to see if it was modifiable or not. This was not really what I had in mind: the function would only be used by the RPGIII and the only advantage would be to hide the logic. This logic would be a lot easier in a function as I am juggling dates. But the function would never be used elsewhere.

I think it really needs two functions : one for establishing the value of the status, so that function could eventually be shared by other programs, and another to let the RPGIII know if the field should be protected or not.

How would you tackle this, especially the second function?

Thanks