Eschew obfuscation. Either just use 0 and one, or write false=0;true=1. Similarly, for PL/I either just use '0'b and '1'b or write false='0'b;true='1'b;.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2020 4:09 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: REXX true/false (was Constant Identifiers) <g> I've never done that, but I have done something like it: str=word('true false',(0-fx)+2) ...where fx is Boolean. I hope I've done it only in programs I wrote for my own use. But I sometimes write a tool for myself, then move it to a public library on request, so that monster may be out there somewhere. (If I have to explain it, it just proves I should never write it that way in the first place. This is better: if fx then str='true'; else str=true But it sometimes pleases me to be too clever for my own good.) --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* In its state of nature [a dog] has a smell, and habits, which frustrate man's love; he washes it, house-trains it, teaches it not to steal, and is so enabled to love it completely. To the puppy, the whole proceeding would seem, if it were a theologian, to cast grave doubts on the "goodness" of man; but the full-grown and full-trained dog, larger, healthier and longer-lived than the wild dog, and admitted, as it were by Grace, to a whole world of affections, loyalties, interests and comforts entirely beyond its animal destiny, would have no such doubt. -C S Lewis, _The Problem of Pain_ */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Friday, September 4, 2020 13:01 In Rexx I have sometimes, perhaps mischievously, replaced: IF (var_a = var_b) THEN THEN temp_var = some_string ELSE tenp_var = '' say string_a || temp_var || string_b with: say string_a || copies( some_string, (var_a = var_b) )string_b to save a few lines of code. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
