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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Languages - RPG
Created by Guest
Created on Dec 11, 2018

Minimize the use of semicolons in free RPG

The function of semicolon as end-of-statement in free RPG could be optionally replaced by that of start-of-continuation-line.

This way the end of a statement would be indicated by the newline character provided that the first non-blank character of the following non-empty line is not a semicolon.

To achieve this a new pair *ENDOFSTMT/*NOENDOFSTMT or similar could be added to the OPTION parameter of the CRTRPGMOD command.


Use Case:

Instead of having to code this:

dcl-f FILE1 DISK USROPN
EXTDESC('EXTFILE1');

dcl-ds *N;
RtnCode int(10)
// Comment
INZ(0);
RtnText char(80);
end-ds;

if RtnCode = 1 or
RtnCode = 2;
RtnText = 'Code ' + %char(RtnCode) + ': ' +
'Text';
endif;

We would be able to code:

dcl-f FILE1 DISK USROPN
; EXTDESC('EXTFILE1')

dcl-ds *N
RtnCode int(10)
// Comment
; INZ(0)
RtnText char(80)
end-ds

if RtnCode = 1 or
; RtnCode = 2
RtnText = 'Code ' + %char(RtnCode) + ': ' +
; 'Text'
endif


Idea priority Low
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Dec 20, 2018

    IBM does not intend to provide a solution to this request, so it is being closed.

    Having two different ways of indicating continuation would make it difficult to handle /COPY files. Even if there was a directive at the member level to indicate a different type of continuation to handle /COPY files, it would still be confusing for RPG programmers working on the code, and it would be confusing when code was discussed in articles and forums.