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Developer > RPG

How Flexible are Your Calculations?

RPG programming techniques to help you solve unsolvable problems.
September 2007 | by Jon Paris and Susan Gantner

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In addition to these three structures, we also need to define the variables that will be passed to the subprocedures. These are defined as BASED and
their basing pointers (pV1 and pV2) will be set from the addresses in the pVariable array.

Interestingly, once the grunt work of defining the various data structures is out of the way, the processing to use them is trivial. We begin by
performing the %LOOKUP operations needed to determine the indexes for the variables and the operation code. We then check that all of the input
was valid, and, if so, continue to set the appropriate pointers. Once done, we simply perform the calculation. The code looks like this:

It really is that simple. Its defining the basic structures and the subprocedures that takes time. Once the basics are in place, adding additional
variables and/or calculations to the mix is quick and easy.

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Jon Paris is a technical editor with IBM Systems Magazine and co-owner of Partner400.
More Articles From Jon Paris
Susan Gantner is a technical editor with IBM Systems Magazine and co-owner of Partner400.
More Articles From Susan Gantner

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Even More Flexible Calculations
E-Newsletter Exclusive | In the September EXTRA e-Newsletter, Jon Paris and Susan Gantner shared some solutions to &qout;unsolvable&qout;
RPG problems with a technique for flexible calculations. Now they delve deeper with a more complex example, making a sequence of calculations
not only possible but simple to create and use.
RPG - Anchoring Your Team
Cover Story | Alternate approaches to extending your RPG applications.
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