Re: RPG

[Mark S Waterbury <mark.s.waterbury@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Vern:

In Algol, Pascal and Ada, a semicolon is used as a statement separator, 
not  a  statement terminator.    So you might have:

    if a < b then  begin
        z  := a;
        end
    else begin
        z := b;
        end;

(The final semicolon is only needed when this if-else statement is  
followed by another statement in a compound statement block.)

In PL/I, designed by IBM in the mid-1960s, the semicolon is a statement 
terminator, as currently used in free-form RPG IV. For example:

    IF (A < B) THEN DO;
        Z = A;
        END;
    ELSE DO;
        Z = B;
        END;

C was influenced by PL/I in many ways -- C statements end with a 
semicolon, except when braces are used, in which case, a ";" never 
follows the final "}" closing brace.  For example:

        if (a > b)
            z = a;
        else
            z = b;

 -or-

    if (a > b) {
        z = a;
        }
    else {
        z = b;
        }

HTH,

Mark S. Waterbury

> On 7/19/2016 4:56 PM, Vernon Hamberg wrote:
> Crazy quirks? (See John's statement below) Semicolons?
>
> Let's see, languages like C, Pascal, Algol, Ada, PL/I, et al, used 
> semicolons to indicate the end of a line - and Javascript today can 
> use them although optional, last I looked.
>
> Not so crazy anytime, methinks!
>
> Vern