Re: Why you shouldn't be afraid to use VARCHAR in RPGLE

[Brian Parkins <goodprophet.bp@xxxxxxxxx>]

May I beg to differ?

I would suggest many folk will find such an expression too cryptic, 
especially when maintaining code written by others. It may be efficient, 
it may be "elegant" - but is it easy to read and understand? Take a very 
simple example:

a = a + 5;  -or-  a += 5;

Personal opinion: the former is more readily understood, the latter not 
so, and open to miscoding (a =+ 5;). It is my experience that a majority 
will favour readability in preference to "elegant" coding

Brian.

On 11/12/2025 14:14, Javier Sanchez wrote:
> BTW, I have wondered a lot why you guys have not yet implemented the C-like
> expression as:
> boolVal = (a = b ? 0: 1);
> This is not only necessary for modern RPG but it should have been provided
> long time ago! 🙂