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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Languages - RPG
Created by Guest
Created on Dec 30, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

Add configurable continuation start column (left margin) for fully free-form RPG (**FREE)

RPG IV currently supports two “free format” models:

Hybrid free format (traditional RPG IV), where a statement is considered free format when it begins in column 8 or later.

Fully free format using **FREE in column 1, where all source lines are free format and begin in column 1.

While these two models appear syntactically similar, they behave differently when handling continued literals or constants, particularly quoted strings. This difference creates subtle functional changes when migrating existing hybrid free-format RPG to fully free-format RPG.

In hybrid free format, continuation lines are interpreted starting either at:

  • First non-blank character (+ continuation),
  • Column 8 (- continuation).

When the same source is compiled under **FREE, continuation lines start in column 1, which can change the resulting value when continued literals use the minus symbol. And (sadly) I see a lot of RPG Developer's code where they aways use the - (minus) for continuation for some reason.

This behavior makes migrating existing hybrid RPG IV code (aka, /free RPG) to fully free format (**FREE) potentially risky and error-prone. Even when the source is visually identical, literal values can change due solely to differences in continuation column handling.

For large or mature RPG codebases, this complicates modernization efforts and undermines the goal of **FREE as a safe, incremental evolution of RPG syntax.

Requested Enhancement

Provide a way to configure the continuation start column (left margin) for continued source statements in fully free-format RPG.

Possible approaches include (examples only):

  • A compiler directive e.g., /LEFTMARGIN 8 (or similar)
  • An RPG Control (header) specification keyword. e.g., CTL-OPT MARGINS(8 : 80)

This setting would define the effective left margin for continuation lines, allowing developers to preserve existing continuation semantics when migrating from hybrid free format to fully free format (**FREE) RPG IV.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Jan 8, 2026
    Thank you for taking the time to submit your Idea. However, IBM does not intend to provide a solution to this Idea at this time, so it is being closed.

    When maintaining code with '-' continuation, it is already necessary to know whether the source begins with **FREE.

    If the meaning of a statement with '-' continuation might also depend on a CTL-OPT keyword or a directive, it would make the process of determining the meaning of the statement even more complex.

    Regarding conversion, tools doing the conversion have the option of changing the statement to have '+' continuation or even merging the two lines. If a person is doing manual conversion, they would have to know that there is an issue with '-' continuation, and in that case they can just make the necessary correction.

    - IBM Power Systems Development
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