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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Application Development
Created by Guest
Created on Nov 28, 2018

RELATED IDEAS

CL Language Does not have Array Support

Transferred from AD0269 -

The CL language does not have array support, which is something that would be very useful.


Use Case:

Current workaround: Prior to getting pointer support one had to declare large fields, do a lot of calculating, and use %SST() functions. With pointers the calculations were the same, but the %SST() functions was replaced with pointer based fields. Either way the amount of code this required in CL gets really ugly.

Proposed resolution: A DIM parameter should be added to the DCL command. The array elements would be referenced with parentheses as is currently done in RPG: &MYFIELD(2), &THATFIELD(&I), etc. There is a problem when fields are defined in a variable that itself is an array. The way around this problem is to implement another requirement that I've proposed on this site, allowing CL data structures to be qualified. A sub-field in such a structure would be referenced as &MYDS(2):&SUBFIELD or &THATDS(&I):&THATSUB (The period(.) character cannot be used as a separator because it's a valid character in variable and object names, so I settled on the colon(:) character as a reasonable separator in CL.)


Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jun 6, 2022

    You want to have more and more features of RPG in the CL language. It would be more helpful and productive to use RPG instead and add the ability to issue a CL command directly from within RPG, without QCMDEXC.


    Commands that have return variables will be more comfortable in RPG.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jun 12, 2019

    The cost to implement would not be worth the benefit. Additionally, you can leverage SQL with CL today to accomplish what us being requested for example.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jan 29, 2019

    A group of 3 RFEs are related enhancements that COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) believes would work well together to enhance the CL language capabilities, so I am linking them together: 127728, 127731, 127732.

    Nancy Uthke-Schmucki - CAAC Program Manager

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jan 29, 2019

    The CAAC has reviewed this requirement and recommends that IBM view this as a high priority requirement that is important to be addressed. This would add to the ability to work with APIs in CL just as the more relatively new *DEFINED declarations help with structures from API calls -- arrays would add to that.

    Background: The COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CAAC has a key role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual RFEs on the broader IBM i community, and has therefore reviewed your RFE.

    For more information about CAAC, see www.common.org/caac

    For more details about CAAC's role with RFEs, see http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/i-Can/May-2017/COMMON-Americas-Advisory-Council-%28CAAC%29-and-RFEs/

    Nancy Uthke-Schmucki - CAAC Program Manager

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Dec 7, 2018

    IBM has modified some of the information in this request. In particular, the Source field was updated to indicate that this requirement originated with the COMMON User Group. Please contact us if you have any questions.

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