Copybooking PRs WasRE: Impossible to even think about rewriting in RPG

In this list and in presentations I often hear about people putting _all_ of their prototypes into _one_ copybook. This has always boggled my mind and I feel like maybe there's something I'm not grasping.

Like Bryce, we have a special source member for copybooks (we make these members end in a Y - C was taken for CLs). Each Service Program of ours has its own copybook to share its exported procedure prototypes as well as any Data Structure templates, global variables or constants required by the caller or service program.

I can't imagine putting all of that into one copybook. It seems like a step toward the monolithic pain in the a$$. I'd imagine cleanup of it would be a pain as well.

Thoughts?

Kurt Anderson
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
CustomCall Data Systems

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bryce Martin
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 8:04 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: Impossible to even think about rewriting in RPG

John,
I know it seems a bit scattered, but I put all of my PR's in source members in a source file called QCOPYSRC. So anytime I need a prototype for a service program or regular program I just do...

/copy QCOPYSRC,PROGCP
So instead of suffixing with an R or P or whatever you use in the program name I'll suffix my copy members with CP. So there isn't really much to think about. That will then make those available to call. Once the organization is set up and you get your thinking to line up with the new methods and processes it becomes second nature and, in my experience, is much faster and more organized.


Thanks
Bryce Martin
Programmer/Analyst I
570-546-4777



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06/29/2011 10:11 PM
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Re: Impossible to even think about rewriting in RPG






Barbara,

I appreciate your patience and professionalism. Despite my
blathering, you still make a genuine, nonjudgmental effort to reach
out. I'll look into it more when I get a chance. I've always gotten
an icky feeling with /copy, but I suppose it's no worse than
#include-ing C header files. (Not that I'm too happy with #include.)
It's yet another place where the program is scattered about, another
piece to maintain. We'll see how it goes.

John