How to use *OMIT and or *NOPASS

["Voris, John" <john.voris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would debate with Rory Hewitt on using a "variant" for the third parm.

This is a common trap for expediency, but by not calling what something
really is - You are not encapsulating logic, but confounding it - you
are not using prototypes as they were intended - and you are leaving
confusion behind for the next maintenance programmer to understand.

If you end up cramming a numeric into an alpha field, is it left
justified, right justified ?
Within our programs, we are trying to write re-usable code, so are you
going to put the SELECT statement inside a /COPYBOOK - or inside another
procedure?  You may even end up with a SELECT to load the field into the
interface, and then a SELECT to strip it out of the interface in the
receiving program.  

It would just be better to just pass 4 blank fields and the one defined
field with a value and forget about using *OMIT than to confuse the
interface logic with a variant.

-==========================-

> If you're only going to pass one of the last 5 parms, why not simply
have 4 required parms:

    P S#CHKUSR        B                    Export
    D S#CHKUSR        PI              N
    D  UserProfile                  10A
    D  AppSys                        5A
    D  IDFld                         1A
    D  IDType                        1A

> and have a SELECT in there to say e.g.

> when IDType = 'E';
  EcisSSN = IDFld; // IDFld is EcisSSN
> when IDType = 'T';
  ThrdSsn = IDFld; // IDFld is ThrdSsn
...

and you'd call it as:

> C        eval      retfield = S#chkusr(USR:DEPT:F1:'E'); // 3rd parm
is EcisSsn
> C        eval      retfield = S#chkusr(USR:DEPT:F1:'B'); //3rd parm is
BnkID