Re: Could RPG become quasi-immune to level checks (was: Are level checks still useful?)

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/1/2012 11:43 AM, Jeff Crosby wrote:

> Theoretically, could RPG be enhanced such that the from/to positions are
> _not_ hard-coded at compile time?  Instead, based on field name (whether
> renamed or not), the from/to positions would be established at run time.
>   If so, one would also have to code updates properly, i.e., either  via
> "Update RecordName %Fields(blah:blah:blah);" or making sure the O specs
> have no end position.

Pretty much anything is _theoretically_ possible. The names and data 
types of the RPG fields would pretty much have to be frozen at compile 
time, but it doesn't seem impossible to have the layout of the record be 
determined at runtime.

But this oculd already be done using Open Access. I don't think it would 
be that hard to write a generic Open Access handler that could transform 
data between the compile-time version of the file and the runtime version.

Using the names-values mechanism for I/O, it would only have to figure 
out the layout of the runtime file. Using the buffer mechanism for I/O, 
it would have to have figure out the layout of both the compile-time and 
runtime versions of the file.