CL Enhancements

Presented by Guy Vig, IBM

Meeting was held on April 21, 2004.

As promised at the meeting, information about PTFs needed for using the new features on V5R2 and compiling "backlevel" on V5R3 are now HERE.

CL is the command language for the iSeries (and the AS/400 and the System/38 before it).  There have been many suggestions for improvements and additions to the language, but it has been a rather long time since anything new was added.  Yes, new commands have been added, but little has been done in almost 20 years (System/38 CPF Release 5) when we got support for one (1) database file in a CL program.  OK, OK, I do remember that the CALLPRC command was added when ILE was integrated into CL but these new enhancements are MUCH more than that.

Well, all that sameness is changing now . . . the next release of OS/400 will offer new structured programming elements and significant new features.  Come on in and hear the man in charge of CL himself tell you what's coming soon.

By the end of this presentation, you will be know how to:

  1. Write CL programs that are easier to code and easier to read.
  2. Easily build documentation and help text for your user-written commands.

Note: we were NOT allowed to tell you whether this will be "PTFed back" to V5R2 so you can use it much sooner than you might otherwise think (but NOW we are).