Re: [V4, positional]: Converting decimal to string without leading zeros

Hello Jon,

Am 09.06.2021 um 21:50 schrieb Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

There has been no formal deprecation. But you can safely assume that any op-code that is not supported in free format is effectively deprecated.

I never bothered to look into the free format stuff. :-) But your statement makes sense.

I don't know why you ever thought you needed to use RPG III to "leave all that ILE stuff aside".

Because I was still comparatively new to the system back then. Must have been somewhere between 2007 and 2010. Just imagine you want to start with, say, VMS, out of the blue.

Maybe you were badly advised by someone who didn't know what they were talking about or ...

No. That was just my own thinking. Somewhat dumb in hindsight. But then, learning sometimes goes through failure.

I am shuddering. The idea that anyone would write fixed-form code using indicators in this day and age (or even any time in the last 15+ years) is beyond my comprehension I'm afraid.

I know. :-) I don't expect you to understand: You're doing that for for a living and newer things usually mean less programming effort.

For a hobbyist to want to restrict themselves to that format - I'm just gobsmacked to use a good old English expression. Why ... oh why do you limit yourself so?

First, I don't feel limited. :-)

Second, there's a certain beauty to me in having a rigid format to follow. "Free" coming with V5 was neither one thing nor the other, supporting only C-Specs to be free-format.

Third, all-free appears more or less like any other free-format programming language to me. Things reminding me about RPG are mostly absent from not too much in-depth engagement with it. My choice would be C if I'd need to do things which might be hard in positional RPG, such as CGI programming. These might require a lot of static strings in the code, and *that* is truly PITA in positional RPG.

And, last, coding in old style means, what I code should more or less compile on all OS/400 releases supporting ILE. As it turns out over months and years, I'm not the only hobbyist sticking with that platform. :-)

:wq! PoC