Re: Why you shouldn't be afraid to use VARCHAR in RPGLE

Sorry about the confusion!

I am in CEAC and had the impression that the %IF idea was delivered.. it
was not - my bad.

The next confusion was - this thread contains two different discussions..
I’ll just keep my mouth shut…

lør. 13. dec. 2025 kl. 20.44 skrev Daniel Gross <[email protected]>:

> Hi Marco,
>
> well - of course, we can use a "return parameter" - but this would counter
> the trend to expressions - and not only that, you would need an exactly
> matching field.
>
> Regards,
> Daniel
>
>
> > Am 13.12.2025 um 19:45 schrieb Marco Facchinetti <
> [email protected]>:
> >
> > Hi Daniel
> >
> > You can have a single (overloaded) function if instead of using the
> return
> > value you pass the result (char/date/time/ts) as a parameter by
> reference.
> > Of course you need a separate function for numbers.
> >
> >
> > Best regards
> >
> > --
> > Marco Facchinetti
> >
> > Mr S.r.l.
> >
> > Tel. 035 962885
> > Cel. 393 9620498
> >
> > Skype: facchinettimarco
> >
> >
> >> Il giorno sab 13 dic 2025 alle ore 19:06 Daniel Gross <[email protected]>
> ha
> >> scritto:
> >>
> >> Hi Birgitta,
> >>
> >>>> Am 13.12.2025 um 18:11 schrieb Birgitta Hauser <
> [email protected]>:
> >>>
> >>> %IF does not (yet?!) exist.
> >>> But it would be easy to code ... and for different data types the
> >> function can be overloaded.
> >>
> >> Well - yes and no - of course you can overload the input parameters -
> but
> >> until now, it is impossible to also override the return value type. All
> >> procedures (functions) in a override have to return the exact same
> type. So
> >> you would have to create different functions vor each return type.
> >>
> >>        ifChar( 1 = 1 : 'Hello' : 'World' );
> >>        ifInt( 'Y' = 'N' : 1 : 0 );
> >>
> >> ... and so on. So a %BIF would be much easier, as it could return an
> >> arbitrary type.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Daniel
> >> --
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