I would love to see these "standard" tests... do you have a pointer to some?
In my experience, even neglecting the new things IBM has invented over the decades, there are still many corners where IBM doesn't match the PL/I standard... I've been walking through trying to understand the standard for several years. One good example is where IBM doesn't match the standard, it doesn't always evaluate the operand of the LENGTH builtin (which could invoke a function) if it can compute the result at compile-time. So, even though the expression might have a side-effect, it is not invoked. IBM also has many extensions - you can use a "restricted expression" where a constant is required in the standard; but IBM doesn't strictly define what this is. IBM also evaluates declarations in an order to try and allow some forward constant declarations to be used in a previous declaration; but doesn't define what that order might be - so some forward declarations work, and some others don't. I suppose my post here devolves into "IBM has enhanced things (for their customers) without strictly defining what those enhancements might be in relation to the standard, and with only a loose description of those enhancements." I'd love to see a set of "standard" tests though! - Dave Rivers - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
