Re: The Elements of Informix-4gl Style? (long)

Path: emory!europa.asd.contel.com!uunet!ispd-newsserver!kodak!music!amiano From: amiano@music.Kodak.COM (Mitch Amiano) Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix Keywords: 4gl style Message-ID: <1992Mar12.181116.15305@kodak.kodak.com> Date: 12 Mar 92 18:11:16 GMT References: <29B7A050.1042@tct.com> <1992Mar09.021316.10584@dickens.com> <29BC2DE7.7F9D@tct.com> <1992Mar10.210913.18231@dickens.com> <1992Mar12.000729.17820@StarConn.com> Sender: amiano@music (Mitch Amiano) Organization: Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, NY In article <1992Mar12.000729.17820@StarConn.com>, pmahler@StarConn.com (Paul Mahler) writes: [...lots of good article deleted...] |> The other issue is program looks |> as far as indents and spacing and starting and stopping |> statements. When should an if statement start and end? |> What goes where in a case statement. Have to throw my 2 cents in. I try to think of the code in terms of its control structures as blocked statements. A code block is begun with any keyword of the language, and ends with the keyword or symbol which terminates the statement. Any keywords or symbols which are dependant clauses of a statement should be visually identifiable with the block, and are indented at the same level as the first keyword. Groups of related statements (paragraphs ?) are separated by at least one blank line. A more major break in groups of statements is shown with more blank lines. Clauses within statements begin their own sub-blocks, and indentation follows. Keywords or symbols which terminate sub-clause blocks are indented at the level of the originating clause. These blocks may or may not be given leading and trailing blank lines, depending on the size of the block. If a block grows to greater than 24 lines, append a comment containing the originating keyword or code to the last line. I really don't care about capitalization one way or the other, but it should be consistent. Let me illustrate: Function MyFunc() Define lEntity record like Entity.* Input by name lEntity.* On Key( Interrupt ) Case When infield( col1 ) stuff... When infield( col2 ) stuff... When infield( col3 ) stuff... End Case # infield() After Input some other stuff... End Input # lEntity.* Select * Into gEntity.* From Entity Where col1 = lEntity.col1 and col2 = lEntity.col2 If ( lEntity.col3 <> gEntity.col3 ) Then Display "Some stuff again..." To sErrorMsgFld End If Return End Function # MyFunc() |> I would love to have a beautifier that made all the |> code look the same. even, gag, perhaps at the expense |> of all upper case KEYWORDS. There is one. If I could only find it in my disk files.... :-( I can't believe there aren't any other 4gl beautifiers out there. If others are interested, maybe I'll look harder. I do know that the one I have (somewhere) came in a package of 4gl utilities, and it cost $50. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Mitch Amiano Current Work Phone: 716-477-3506 | | Software Contractor Address: amiano@music.kodak.com | | Rochester, NY | | 716-226-2024 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------