Re: RFE String interpolation for RPG

Am 21.10.2021 um 03:29 schrieb Roger Harman <roger.harman@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

I understand the thought behind this but you're asking the next programmer to decipher a completely foreign (to them) syntax.
I do, however, use a named constant (QT) for quotes like yours, but I think that's pretty mainstream.

I really don't understand the difficulty being expressed over concatenation.

It’s not about difficulty, but think about a very long dynamic SQL string:

#sql = 'select …. +
from table +
where {column1name} = ''{column1val}'' +
order by {column1name}’;

It’s IMHO easier to read and understand than:

#sql = 'select …. +
from table +
where ' + %trim(column1name) + ' = ''' + %trim(column1val) + '‘' +
order by ' + %trim(column1name;

Just as a short example - now extrapolate that to a 52 line long complex SQL with CTE’s and something more.

The thing is, you don’t have to break the string a thousand times, and why not allow the normal RPG BIF’s inside the interpolation chars, like in

string = '….. {%char(%elem(array))} ….‘;

This would make it even more flexible.