Reader Feedback and Insights: Indicators in RPG II Programs

November 15, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

Just a comment on your good ideas (which were published in the article, “Help with RPG II Programs,” in the November 1 issue of Midrange Guru) for making System/36 style code easier to use.

I have gotten in the habit of using the DO op code to group calculations that have the same conditioning indicators .

For example, consider a group of calculations conditioned by indicator 25:

          CHAIN                        25
N25       MOVE
N25       Z-ADD
N25       etc.......

I would group them like this:

          CHAIN                        25
N25       DO
          MOVE
          Z-ADD
          etc.......
          END

It saves me from loading “fieldicators” and therefore it is more justifiable for me to use it on just a few lines of code. I wouldn’t, for instance, create a “fieldicator” for the three-line example as shown above, but I might group them with a DO op code .

I really feel for your reader, too. I’ve had programmers that never learned RPG II originally, and they just can’t get a feel for reading it!  It’s kind of scary how easy it still is for me.

— John

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