RE: Calling similiar (overloaded) procedure that has *nopass *omitinthe parameter

Is someone talking from past experiences? ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Birgitta Hauser
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:17 AM
To: 'RPG programming on the IBM i / System i'
Subject: AW: Calling similiar (overloaded) procedure that has *nopass *omitinthe parameter

Lucky programmers document and test, test and document.
They also read the documentation and the code.

Unlucky programmers have to read and document the undocumented code written
by other programmers. :(

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." (Les
Brown)
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." (Derek Bok)
"What is worse than training your staff and losing them? Not training them
and keeping them!"

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Im
Auftrag von John McKay
Gesendet: Wednesday, 09. March 2011 07:35
An: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Betreff: Re: Calling similiar (overloaded) procedure that has *nopass
*omitinthe parameter

Barbara,

Lucky programmers document and test, test and document. They also
read the documentation and the code.

Regards,
John McKay mba

On 08/03/2011 23:00, Barbara Morris wrote:

On 2011/3/8 3:18 PM, Morgan, Paul wrote:

Have you tried to check the address of a *nopass parameter if it
wasn't passed? I get *NULL when I check in my test program and the
program doesn't break.

You've been unlucky then. If you were lucky, you would have seen a
non-null pointer that just happened to be lying around where your
program was looking for it, and your program would have broken because
it thought the parameter had actually been passed.

Sometimes programs and procedures that access unpassed parameters can
work for years, and then something changes about what happens before the
program or procedure gets called, and *boom*, you get an error.

Everything might seem to work fine until you demo it to your boss, or
until just after it goes into production, or until just before you go on
vacation, or ...