Re: FW: Niftiest thing(s) you have done in RPG ILE or /FREE

[James Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Ryan wrote:
> Why? What can I do in the cycle that I can't do without the cycle? How
> does the cycle make the code more efficient? How does the cycle make
> the code clearer to most folks? What's the advantage of using the
> cycle?

Among other things, if you don't use The Cycle, you have to disable it, 
one way or another. So if you've got some process that has to be applied 
to every record of a file, why walk through the file when you can ride? 
And if you have an interactive program that runs in a "do-until-done" 
event loop, why bother explicitly disabling the one that's there 
implictly, only to explicitly create one of your own?

What can you do in RPG that you can't do in PL/I? Or C? Or COBOL?