Reader Feedback and Insights: RPG II

December 4, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

I am writing in response to your article, “Help with RPG II Programs“, which published in the November 1 issue of Midrange Guru, where you explained replacing indicators in S/36 RPG code. You provided some good suggestions about indicator replacement in S/36 code. Since I’m still ‘hip boots and snorkel deep’ in that code, I have a few more suggestions.

Definitely investigate the replacement of calculation result indicators with the “IFEQ” calculation operations.

If it appears that you still need to retain an indicator for conditioning output, investigate including an EXCPT op code within the

Protecting HTML Page Elements with JavaScript and CSS

December 4, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, David:

I have an HTML form with several optional elements. Is there a way to protect and unprotect text elements based on a checkbox? When the user checks an alternate shipping address box, I want to open up a set of shipping address fields. I tried to do this with JavaScript, but the value of the checkbox doesn’t seem to change in Internet Explorer.

— Loren

You were on the right track checking the value for the checkbox; however checkboxes are a special case.

The value attribute for checkboxes represents what the browser sends to the server when the

LIKE is Like, Confusing, Man!

December 4, 2002 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Hey, Ted:

IBM is doing it again, and I’m about to pop a vein. I’m getting a data decimal error in an RPG IV program when I access the contents of a data area subfield. The subfield is called PPLANT and it’s defined on the D spec with the LIKE keyword. PPLANT is based on a database file field named IPLANT, which is zoned.

D PlantDS         ds
D  PPlant                             like(iplant)

The compiler listing shows IPLANT in the file input and output buffers as being in zoned-decimal format. However, the cross reference shows IPLANT as being in packed-decimal format. Since IPLANT