Re: Externalizing I/O

I think the majority of RPG devs would say, "it ain't broke, stop trying
to fix it!".

I think I mentioned previously that we use a high-level wrapper around the
SQL CLI interface. Nearly all our inquiry and report applications use it.
Following is an excerpt for report "detail" lines.

csrRefresh();

dow csrGoto(csr_next);
rptRecSet('DETAIL');
rptVarSet('rf':csrColStr('REFID'));
rptVarSet('nm':%trimr(csrColStr('NAME')));
rptVarSet('tm':%char(csrColTime('TM')));
rptVarSet('sq':%char(csrColInt('SEQN')));
rptVarSet('it':%trimr(csrColStr('ITEM')));
rptVarSet('rt':%trimr(csrColStr('RATE')));
rptVarSet('am':%editc(amount:'2'));
rptVarSet('ac':%trimr(csrColStr('ACCOUNT')));
rptRecWrt('DETAIL');
enddo;

The "csrColxxx()" procedures return column values - like getters - except
the column name is passed as the parameter. This interface is not subject
to level checks when table structures change.

Thus the majority of our RPG modules are not subject to structural changes
to DB tables.