FW: Declare global in called table goes away following lookup?

[John Esak]

> I'm not saying it's hard to remember what ,g does. I am saying it's only
> possible to remember what ,g does because because everywhere else we
strive
> to have labels that relate to the contents, and so the occasional
arbitrary
> exception like this can be suffered. But that very same statement also
shows

Huh... you are all only calling this an exception or arbitrary *after the
fact*... there was a time when it was perfectly logical... and then, when
declare global didn't even exist for filePro, the ,g standing for global
made perfect sense. Still does.

> that it is important to strive for meaningful labels as much as possible.
> None of us is going to ever not-know what ,g is or how to make a variable
> persistent across records.

The ,g was not to represent a variable being persistent just across records
but just as importantly across processing tables.  It was perfectly logical
to use the term from other programming languages that conveyed this idea.
The ,g gives you a variable that if created on the auot(matic) table had its
value available on the other tables like the -v sort/select and -z
input/output table as well.

Your localizing on the additional functionality that the ,g gives a vairable
persistence across records is why you are feeling there is some conlflict
and the g should only be mnemonic for declare's and their aspect of global.
This is cherry picking resasons...

I think it is enough to remember that in filePro's case, the ,g preceded the
declare by 4 and a half versions and about 10 or 12 years. Also, the declare
global uses the word global... who the hell needs a mnemonic for a word???
:-)

Not being able to remember/learn/understand the difference between ataching
a ,g to a variable definition and a global to a declare would tell me that
you are going to have other quite more serious problems in programming with
filePro.

Mnmonics are fine when they are needed... I don't see the need here.

Sounds like a dull day and we have nothing better to talk about.


John