On Sat, 4 Apr 2009 22:09:57 -0700, Edward Jaffe wrote:
>
>I'm an assembler language programmer by trade. I'm proficient with REXX.
>But, I would not call myself anything more than a mere mortal.
>
>I would very much like to see a generalized, callable REXX external
>function that does *full* IKJPARS emulation in fewer lines than my
>behemoth. The positional parameters are relatively easy. (Don't forget
>to prompt if they're not there!) But, keywords are much tougher. For
>example, only the minimum number of chars to make the keyword
>identifiable need be specified by the caller. (I spent 1/2 page of code
>on that requirement alone).
>
Culture. Rexx is Rexx. Rexx is not CLIST. Attempting to
code in language X as if it were language Y is the road to
intense frustration.
I believe that the HLASM macro processor does not allow coding
the minimum number of chars to make keywords identifiable. Do
you spend behemoth code when you author a macro to satisfy that
"requirement"?
OTOH, I have an enduring frustration that I was never quite
able to code in Rexx (CLIST would have been no better):
address TSO 'ISPF CMD(%rexx-exec arbitrary-arg-string)'
... where arbitrary-arg-string does not conform to TSO syntax
conventions. (unbalanced parentheses, invalid chars, whatever).
I finally settled on:
address TSO 'ISPF CMD(exec ''MY.SYSEXEC(rexx-exec)''
''arbitrary-arg-string'')'
... with considerable dissatisfaction that I had to sacrifice
using the SYSEXEC search order.
-- gil
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