Re: Reading QMHRCVPM data returned

[Bruce Vining <bvining@xxxxxxxxxx>]

All of the RPG generated names currently start with Q and a component 
identifier (such as MH for message handler).  It may surprise you, but 
there are IBM standards in naming conventions to try and make sure IBM 
generated names do not collide with names that a customer might use.  If I 
recall correctly the name space A to I (might be J) is IBMs with a special 
exemption of Q for System i (and S/38 before that).  As unlikely as it may 
seem, generating a name RCVM0200 might have collided with a user variable 
name in your program.  By always prefixing the names with a Q we avoided 
name space collisions. 

You may notice that the names also avoid the use of vowels.  This is be 
avoid generating "interesting" "nasty" words :)  I'm sure if I looked at 
the code I could also pull out a few other things we're doing, but this is 
what comes immediately to mind.

The naming that is currently in use really did have some thought put into 
it :)  The generated names aren't "great", but hopefully they do a half 
decent job.  For truely poor naming check out the OPM RPG names -- try 
name uniqueness in 6 characters or less!

Bruce Vining




"Rory Hewitt" <roryhewitt@xxxxxxxxx> 
Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
05/18/2007 10:32 AM
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RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


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Re: Reading QMHRCVPM data returned






The only question I have for Bruce is why the data-structure names aren't
the same as the format name, e.g. RCVM0200 instead of QMHMR... That alone
would (I think) have simplified things...

Rory



> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bruce Vining
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:01 AM
> To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
> Subject: RE: Reading QMHRCVPM data returned
>
> The names are "interesting" also due to the lack of Qualified names way
> back when.  The names are generated in a way that you can combine any
> number of QSYSINC includes into the same RPG application and compile
> without worry of name collisions across different APIs.  You just can't
> imagine how many Bytes_Returned, Bytes_Available fields for instance are
> found across the various APIs and API formats :)