Linoma Tidies Up with New ‘Clean RPG’ Function
January 15, 2008 Alex Woodie
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You’ve lugged them around for years, dragging them with you when you move, even though they don’t serve much of a purpose anymore. No, we’re not talking about old luggage here, but unused pieces of RPG source code. While it’s not the scourge of the universe, having unneeded RPG code in your programs slows down recompiles and makes general maintenance more time consuming. Now, Linoma Software is helping you clean up your act with a new Clean RPG Source command in its RPG Toolbox. Originally released by Linoma in September 2001, the RPG Toolbox gathers several of Linoma’s RPG programmer productivity tools, including the RPG Wizard, SEU Plus, and Source Snippets, into one convenient location. The suite is primarily aimed at helping programmers modernize their RPG source code, including moving RPG II and RPG III code to the modern RPG IV dialect, of either the free-format or fixed-format variety. With RPG Toolbox version 4, which was announced in mid-December, Linoma has introduced a new command aimed at encouraging healthier and happier RPG code and coders: the Clean RPG Source (CLNRPG) command. The CLNRPG command will find, and optionally remove, unused definitions and logic found within RPG IV (either RPGLE or SQLRPGLE) source code, thereby making compiles run faster, and the code run more efficiently, Linoma says. The function can be used to find unused stand-alone work fields, subroutines, prototypes, key lists, parameter lists, and tags, the company adds. Programmers get started with the CLNRPG command by first running the *INSPECT action, which generates a report of unused definitions and logic. When the programmers are ready to eliminate the extra code, they can run the *CLEAN command, which removes the unused definition and logic from the source code and generates another report. If the programmer was a bit hasty in his spring cleaning, he can always bring the cut RPG code back from the dead, since the *CLEAN command doesn’t permanently delete the code, but simply moves it to another source file (think recycle bin) for just such occasions. The CLNRPG command can be used from all of the different interfaces supported by the Toolbox, including the 5250 command line, Program Development Manager (PDM), or the WebSphere Development Studio client (WDSc). More comprehensive conversion to free-format RPG is the other major change introduced with RPG Toolbox version 4. This release brings the capability to convert most operations to /FREE form syntax, including the conversion of SQL into its /FREE form equivalent in i5/OS V5R4, Linoma says. The RPG Toolbox performs a much more thorough conversion to free format RPG than the standard IBM conversion functions in WDSc, Linoma says. For example, it includes more than 40 options for customizing the conversion process, including the choice of how operations are converted and how the syntax will be styled. Complex RPG syntax, such as left-hand and right-hand indicators, calc-defined work fields, MOVEAs, CALLs, Key Lists, and MOVEs with dissimilar field lengths and types can all be converted to free-format, Linoma says. RPG Toolbox version 4 is available now. The software requires i5/OS V5R1 or higher. Licenses are tier-based, and cost from $995 to $3,495 per processor. To sweeten the pot, Linoma is giving customers a free book when they buy a license to RPG Toolbox, either “Free-Format RPG IV” by Jim Martin or “The Modern RPG IV Language” by Bob Cozzi. For more information and free trial downloads, check out the company’s Website at www.linomasoftware.com. RELATED STORIES Keep RPG Code Current with Linoma Toolbox Linoma Targets Programmer Productivity with RPG Toolbox 3.2 Linoma Software Issues New Release of RPG Toolbox Conversion Utility Linoma Surges, Issues Torrent of New and Updated Utilities
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