Re: RPG to C and C's stupid concept of widening data types

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hi Simon,

> My confusion stems from the fact that if C is instructed to not widen  
> then why does RPG need *CNOWIDEN when that's RPG's default behaviour?  
> What is RPG doing that requires it to be *instructed* to behave  
> differently?

There's a difference specifically in the way 1-byte return values are 
passed.  When ILE was implemented, C and CL passed them one way, and RPG 
and Cobol chose to pass them differently.  (I think C and CL pass them 
as an integer, and RPG and Cobol pass them as character strings...  and 
there's some sort of a difference in the mechanism somewhere deep under 
the covers.)

Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what that difference is.

however, I believe *CNOWIDEN tells RPG to use the same convention that C 
(and CL) use for 1 character return values.