Re: SetLL *start

On 2/28/2011 5:00 PM, Barbara Morris wrote:

On 2/27/2011 5:08 PM, M. Lazarus wrote:

Is there any good technical (not historical) reason that we still have
any opcodes that can't use record formats and file names, for data
files, interchangeably? PF's can't contain multiple formats.
Multi-format LF's are relatively rare nowadays. The only time it would
require differentiation is if a MFLF is used.

Is there a consideration to relax that requirement?

Not sure what would qualify as a good technical reason.

I don't think it would be good to simply say that a file name is
synonymous with its record format name if there is only one format. At
least, it doesn't make sense to me to allow say using a format name on
an OPEN opcode. But maybe it makes sense to allow a WRITE or SETLL
*START/*END to a format name if there is only one format.

There hasn't been any real consideration given to relaxing those rules.

I think the only rationale would be to allow us for once and for all to choose a consistent convention for all RLA opcodes. Your point is well taken, of course, that format doesn't make sense for OPEN, but would it be possible to allow file name for all opcodes? Personally, I prefer that anyway since the file name is what you see in the source code; the format name is something I have to look up (or check the Outline view in RDP <grin>).

Joe