Re: Allocate field with options(*nopass :*omit)

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Lim Hock-Chai wrote:
> I didn't want to use varying because I though at run time it will always
> allocate the max size of the field.  Another word, if caller pass only
> one char to the procedure, at the time, this procedure will still
> allocate 32767 byte of memory.

The compiler doesn't necessarily do a dynamic allocation of the
temporary for each call; it might reuse the same temporary for many
different purposes in your procedure.  And the compiler uses temporaries
for many more things than just parameter passing.  Whatever temporaries
it needs to convert your parameters might already be available for it to
use.  Making your procedure so complicated might not be necessary at
all.

Remember Donald Knuth's words: "Premature optimization is the root of
all evil."

Anyway, you would likely get much better run-time speed using CONST
VARYING; the code to handle the parameter is tons simpler and therefore
less error-prone.  Having to code %SUBST(parm:1:parmlen) can get pretty
annoying.  The temptation will be to store it in a varying temporary;
might as well let the compiler handle that while passing the parameter.