On 1/25/2013 12:32 PM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:
Matching records are still defined in the RPG Reference Manual for V5.
Maybe just covering their bums. .-)
Matching record works just fine in IBM i 7.1 TR5 (the latest and
greatest). I have a very... experienced program that I've been
maintaining for a few years now. It was written using matching record
back in the 80s. Maybe earlier. For all I know, this old thing came
from a System/3 card system.
As I've been working on it, I converted it to RPGLE and have been adding
sub-procedures to it. The main, fixed form blocks of code I leave
intact, but the new functions get written in /free.
So I have an RPGLE program with program described primary and secondary
files, matching record, massive numbers of left hand indicators,
sub-procedures written in /free for local use, sub-procedures bound by
service program and very soon I'll be adding a spreadsheet as an
error/exception report (in addition to the venerable printed exception
report - with O-specs).
I myself as a personal preference don't really have a desire to convert
all that code to /free. It's old, left-handery confusiness - adding
more white space to it isn't going to make the code suddenly become
clear. So I leave it as-is. New code, newly thought up, newly
implemented - that's /free. If it makes sense, I'll mix /free and FIXED
one after the other; I don't understand why I would spend days looking
for a one line /free alternate to MOVE when that particular MOVE has
been tested, debugged and working for a decade.
The good news is that using modern ideas and modern techniques, every
time I touch that beast it becomes more stable, less fragile and easier
to understand - by others, not just me. That's a good deal today and
it'll be a good deal in the future when the application finally goes
transactional instead of batch, and will need to be re-written entirely.
--buck
midrange.com
