Re: Help with QSYCUSRA API - Check User Authority

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Wilt, Charles wrote:
> ...
> Out of curiosity, why the limitation in the RPG compiler?  Just to protect us from ourselves or some
> other reason?  The same data would be pushed onto the stack, so it would seem that the compiler could
> allow a pointer by value parameter if it wanted to.  Not that I can think of a good reason to do it
> that way ;-)
>
> Couldn't you do it with a C program?

Charles, you're right that the RPG compiler _could_ allow passing 
_pointers_ by value to programs.  And I guess it might even be useful 
along with OPTIONS(*STRING).

With C, you can code as though you are passing the parameter by value, 
but if the by-value parameter for a program call (OS linkage) isn't a 
pointer, the C compiler automatically turns it into a by-reference 
parameter.  I find this it very confusing; if you have an OS-linkage 
call with a pointer parameter and an int parameter, both by value, the 
pointer parameter will get passed by value, but the int parameter will 
get passed by reference.