Implicit dependencies are much more important than explicit ones. Changes in the long-established behavior of a translator, even when they correct a notional error, inevitably break much old code; and they do so in ways that are difficult to anticipate.
If different behavior is required, the better thing to do is to introduce a new, and newly named, facility that provides it. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA On 8/6/12, Gainsford, Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > On 7/08/12 7:03 AM, "Paul Gilmartin" <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>Question- would it really change anything (to unusability), if HLASM >>> would return the proper length and not 1? >>> >>o It would be more useful, but it would surely break some >> existing code. > > Really? If the length is currently defined to be 1, then it seems to me > that any code currently using it would be either (a) broken, or (b) > deliberately expecting a value of 1, and therefore unnecessarily obscure. > Of these, (a) seems much more likely, and thus the proposed change to > HLASM might actually help. I don't discount the possibility of (b), mind > you... > > Regards, > Allen >
