RE: Parameter prototype question

["Dennis Lovelady" <iseries@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I am wondering what the point is of using CONST in our case. It does
> not signify that the parameter can never be modified as already
> discussed on this list. 

I must have missed this.  Can you give me a keyword to help me search for
that, because my initial searches turn up empty.

> It only prevents the programmer from modifying
> it directly, as if that would happen in any reasonable situation.

Real situation:  IBM APIs frequently return a library name or a handle to
more information or an error indication and so on and so on in real life.
Before we had procedures, our inter-program CALL was full of that approach,
and many modernization efforts have passed that practice on in module form.
And why not?  It makes perfect sense to do that rather than invent a whole
new way of instituting something that already works!

> The
> other programmers in our shop do not realize that by declaring CONST,
> they are saying to the compiler 'modify my parameter as you think
> fits'.

You will be doing a fine service.  This is one advantage to having
co-workers.  :)  There are things that each of us don't know.  (Scott
excluded, of course.)

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known,
and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized."
        -- Fred Allen