Searching Source In The Twenty-First Century

I love it when IBM gives me a way for me to do something I couldn’t do before. When I think of the tools I had to work with three decades ago, I could almost weep. Recently I had to search a source member for a string of characters, and I was overjoyed that LPEX gave me what SEU couldn’t.

To set the stage for my requirement, I should mention that as a matter of practice, I qualify data structures in my RPG programs. For me to omit the qualified keyword, I have to have a reason.

dcl-ds  Status       qualified;
   Code              char(2);
   Text              char(24);
end-ds;

To access a subfield of a qualified data structure requires me to prefix the subfield with the data structure name and a period.

Status.Code = '20';
Status.Text = 'Operation completed';

The RPG compiler graciously allows us to leave blanks before and after the period. I assume this is for purposes of readability. At least, that’s the reason I sometimes include blanks.

Status . Code = '20';
Status . Text = 'Operation completed';  

How, then, do I search for all instances of the Code subfield of the Status data structure? If I look for “status.code”, the system won’t find the subfield where I left one or more blanks before or after the period. If I leave a blank here or there, the system matches the blanks in the pattern, just as it matches other characters.

Fortunately, LPEX allows us to use regular expressions when we search.

The regular expression in my example consists of the following pieces: