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

agreed. If the developer does not know C or variants the C notation it would not be understandable

Exactly how many RPG developers know C? I’ll wager a small number.


Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Dec 11, 2025, at 2:01 PM, Brian Parkins <goodprophet.bp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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! 🙂

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