Re: NEW RPG RFE - %Pos() BIF

Can't agree with you re the comparison. New BIFs come in all the time. This one is simple and to the point. Pointers have been there since day 1 and still people avoid them like the plague. You should see the expression on the faces of 70% of the class when I even mention the word!

But you can already do what you are asking for and while a slightly simpler syntax might be possible I'm not convinced it is worth the effort.

e.g.

dcl-ds myDS;
aField char(5);
bcFields;
bField char(5) Overlay(bcFields);
cField char(5) Overlay(bcFields: *Next);
comboBC Overlay(bcFields);
dField char(8) Overlay(comboBC);
eField char(2) Overlay(comboBC: *Next);
end-ds;


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Jun 16, 2018, at 12:21 PM, Lynne Noll <lvwnoll@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

THe main issue would not be that programmers are unfamiliar with the pointer logic. After all, they would be unfamiliar with a new bif.


I see the issue as being you can't overlay a range of fields: fld001 through fld52 in a data structure. If you could, you wouldn't need to worry about the starting position. And it would be clear what you were doing, and it would adjust to changes. If you are going to change RPG, this makes more sense to me.









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