Thanks for the response.

I've deleted the PRINT throwaway connective on my U2 client's systems over
these last 14 years with no adverse effects.

I chose the word PRINT based on earlier forms of dartmouth basic whereby
their command line was permanently in a BASIC command interpeter. If you
typed 10 PRINT X, you stored a line of code at line number 10. If you typed
PRINT X, you displayed the value of X left over from the most recent run of
the program. Sort of like our debugger.

If you typed X=10, then so be it, the value of X became 10. But you didn't
see anything. TCL and Basic were very intertwined then.

I just got used to testing and/or seeing what 5+5 was that way. You can name
it anything you want.

As far as the multi-users concept. Most of my environments have just me as
the Pick person with access to TCL. If you have a multiple programmer
environment, then modify userid or portno as required. My multiple
programmer environments's other programmers are somewhat stubborn for new
ideas from me. Too bad, I have a bunch of utilities that I've published in
Spectrum and/or Datastream that serve me constantly to this day that fall on
deaf ears.

One is a modified LISTDICTS limiting the display to just the field number
desired instead of wading through all of the previous attributes. Another is
a utility to display any data file using the existing dict items sort of
like an Access Form View. These 2 tools allow me to quickly learn a new
client's system, data-wise.

Thanks for your response.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Timothy Snyder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: [U2] [UD] running a subroutine


> "Mark Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 10/20/2004 08:53:46
> AM:
>
> > In fact, I welcome any criticisms or limitations anyone would have
> against
> > establishing this PRINT command to handle everything.
>
> This is an intriguing concept, and does seem to have its uses.  A couple
of
> issues that occurred to me are:
>
> 1) This could cause problems in a multi-user environment.  The %PRINT%
item
> should probably include a port number, PID, or something else unique so
you
> don't end up creating and compiling something, only to have it overwritten
> by somebody else before you execute it.  Granted, that's not likely, but
on
> a very busy system with many users, it's certainly a possibility.  Of
> course, you'd have to clean up the generated source and the object after
> the EXECUTE instead of before, to avoid littering up your BP file.
>
> 2) This relies on the fact that the name of the program is also a basic
> command.  The logic as it is precludes changing the name to anything other
> than PRINT.  If PRINT also exists as a command or other VOC entry, you're
> out of luck.  (You do allude to this when you say that on UniData, where
> PRINT is a keyword, this should be globally cataloged instead of creating
a
> VOC entry.)  On general principal, I'd prefer to name it something that's
> more descriptive of its purpose.  I think I'd be tempted to change the
name
> to DO.BASIC, or something like that.  Then of course you'd have to change
> the logic so you strip out the first word of the command line that you
> place in TEST.  This would also mean that you don't have to put a dummy
> argument at the beginning of the command line if you don't actually want
to
> print anything.  So, instead of
>       PRINT ; CALL SUBROUTINENAME(VAL1, VAL2, VAL3)
> you could just say
>       DO.BASIC CALL SUBROUTINENAME(VAL1, VAL2, VAL3)
>
>
> Thanks for sharing this interesting idea.
>
>
> Tim Snyder
> IBM Information Management
> Consulting I/T Specialist , U2 Professional Services
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