RE: Why you shouldn't be afraid to use VARCHAR in RPGLE -- RPG400-L

Not knowing 'C' I asked Google.

Google AI says this:

The statement boolVal = (a = b ? 0: 1) in C is a syntactically valid but potentially confusing use of the ternary operator and assignment operator within a single expression [1].

What it does
Essentially, the line of code is a verbose way of setting boolVal based on whether b is zero or not, while simultaneously changing the value of a:
If b is 0: a becomes 1, and boolVal becomes 1.
If b is non-zero: a becomes 0, and boolVal becomes 0.

I think I can see why IBM might not be in a hurry to handle this request.

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Javier Sanchez
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2025 10:12 AM
To: RPG programming on IBM i <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Why you shouldn't be afraid to use VARCHAR in RPGLE

Vern,
I believe I saw this once already posted, not sure, but if necessary, I will put it in as an IBM Ideas item.
On the side of IBM, this could be something rather obvious, and probably not wait to have it submitted, WADR.
JS

El jue, 11 dic 2025 a las 9:04, Vern Hamberg via RPG400-L (<
rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>) escribió:

Javier

Have you submitted this as an Idea? IBM do listen to us, and I'm very
impressed about that.

*Regards*

*Vern Hamberg*

IBM Champion 2025 <cid:part1.4tRrmVIq.HDq5lqs0@centurylink.net> CAAC
(COMMON Americas Advisory Council) IBM Influencer 2023

On 12/11/2025 8:14 AM, Javier Sanchez wrote:

Thanks Barbara. Nothing better than explanations coming from the

creators

of the compiler. Of course you guys know what all that means and
your contributions will always be appreciated.

BTW, I have wondered a lot why you guys have not yet implemented the

C-like

expression as:
boolVal = (a = b ? 0: 1);
This is not only necessary for modern RPG but it should have been

provided

long time ago! :-)
JS

El mié, 10 dic 2025 a las 22:04, Barbara Morris
(<bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>)
escribió:

On 2025-12-10 12:25 p.m., James H. H. Lampert via RPG400-L wrote:

On 12/10/25 4:06 AM, Infodorado InfoDorado via RPG400-L wrote:

The RPG compiler is a single-pass compiler

No, it can't be pure single-pass. If it were, then a program in
which a variable is NOT defined in a D-spec, nor in the first
C-spec in which

it

appears, would not compile, much less run. And it's trivially
simple to construct an example of this (it took me about 2
minutes), and it compiles and runs just fine. I'd quote the source
here, but it would likely be mangled beyond recognition.

It's a single pass through the source but it gathers information
that it can use multiple times.

The compiler usually allows forward-referencing, so you can code
LIKE(x) where x is defined later.

But for free-form definitions, the compiler requires the parameter
for the data-type keywords to be defined before the keyword is seen.

dcl-s x char(con1); // bad, con1 not defined yet
dcl-c con1 5;
dcl-s y char(con1); // ok, con1 is defined

Where it becomes extra fun is when you have a data structure that
LOOKS defined.

dcl-ds ds1;
subf char(10);
end-ds;
dcl-s x char(%size(ds1)); // %size(ds1) is not defined. WHAT???

RPG allows you to define the length of a data structure later,
either due to being on an I spec, possible an externally-described
I spec, or on a C spec.

C MOVE *blanks ds1 50

Almost certainly wrong columns, but you get what I mean. I'm
defining
DS1 to have a length of 50 here, not the length of 10 that it
looked like it should have. Shenanigans? Yep, but upward-compatible R Us.

We have a H-spec/CTL-OPT keyword for that: DLCOPT(*NOCHGDSLEN).
With that keyword, the compiler doesn't allow you to change the
length of the data structure like that, so it's considered defined
as soon as all the subfields are defined.

--
Barbara

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