Re: Move 'ABC' to Numeric?

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

Steve,

I don't think Tom was saying it was CASE, or any other tool dependent.  I 
think he was saying that no sober person would put that line in their 
program on their own.  Therefore if a vendor see's a program in another 
vendor's package with that line then it is pretty obvious that the other 
package stole the logic from you.

Rob Berendt
-- 
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." 
Benjamin Franklin 





"Steve Landess" <steve_landess@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
07/26/2003 08:39 AM
Please respond to RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
 
        To:     "RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries" 
<rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
        cc: 
        Fax to: 
        Subject:        Re: Move 'ABC' to Numeric?


>>Bill wrote:
>>  2. Move 'ABC' to Numeric?  (Bill Hopkins)
>>Anyone know why you would see this in code.
>>        MOVE 'ABC'       NUM            8P0
 >>More code follows; then
>>NUM     IFEQ     123
>>More code
>>        ENDIF
>>
>>Found in bridge from JDE Sales Orders to PKMS

>
> Tom wrote:
> Does anything happen if it's not equal? Or is there an implication that
something somewhere else won't >happen if the IF-test fails because the
enclosed statements didn't run?
>
> I can _imagine_ someone from years gone by using something like this as 
a
part of code that was
> generated so that under different circumstance a different source line
would have been auto-gen'd
>into the code to result in a value other than 123, perhaps because the
referenced numeric field might
> sometimes be signed and otherwise unsigned.
>
> Or perhaps the 'ABC' constant would be used as a marker in the compiled
object in order
>to recognize a reverse-engineered kind of rip-off? A few of these 
sprinkled
around weren't
>unheard of and I believe still are used. It might just be a remnant that
never got cleaned up.

Tom -

IMO, This was not code generated by the JDE CASE tool.  I have been 
working
with JDE software since 1987, and I have never seen anything like this in
any JDE program.  Some human bozo coded it.  I have seen many modified JDE
programs that had stupid modifications like this.

Once, when I was working at a client in the Dallas area, a JDE _employee_
came in to fix a problem with the invoice print program.  Later, when the
program was still working incorrectly, I looked at the mods he made. 
Instead
of fixing the real problem, he had coded a GOTO around a block of code so
that the program would not bomb.

This speaks to the need of having a systematic way of QA'ing programs.  In
college I was taught the structured methodology and using peer reviews, 
the
"ego-less" approach to reviewing code.  Too often the mavericks slip 
things
in the code that should be caught _before_ the program gets into 
production.

Steve
_______________________________________________
This is the RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries (RPG400-L) mailing list
To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.