Conversion of CALL Statements Placed in Wrong Location and Lose Values Assigned to Parameters

[BrianGodsend]

When a CALL statement is converted to **FREE format, the CALL is converted to a procedure style call. There are a few problems:

• The location of the call is moved. in the source
• Literal values specified in factor 2 are lost
• Values returned to variables in factor 1 are also lost

Fixed format RPG:

     D idx             s              5p 0 inz
     C                   ADD       1             idx
     C                   CALL      'QCMDEXC'
     C                   PARM      'DSPLIBL'     cmd               7  
     C     RTNVALUE      PARM      7             cmdLen           15 5
       *inLR = *ON;
       return;

Wrong output:

**FREE
       Dcl-S idx          Packed(5:0) inz;
       QCMDEXC(cmd:cmdLen);
         idx = idx + 1;
       *inLR = *ON;
       return;

Expected output:

**FREE
       Dcl-S idx          Packed(5:0) inz;
         idx = idx + 1;
     C                   CALL      'QCMDEXC'
     C                   PARM      'DSPLIBL'     cmd               7  
     C     RTNVALUE      PARM      7             cmdLen           15 5
       *inLR = *ON;
       return;

---

If a CALL specifies variables in factor 1 (return values), the CALL statement cannot be converted to FREE. There is no equivalent syntax in FREE that would support this. The closest approximation would be to set the factor 1 variable to the contents of the result field, then pass the factor 1 as the parameter. This would require adding additional lines before the call. Also additional lines would also be needed if any initialization value was being passed as well.

For example, assume QCMDEXC passed back something to do with the command length, the following RPG could be used:

Fixed format RPG:

     D idx             s              5p 0 inz
     C                   ADD       1             idx
     C                   CALL      'QCMDEXC'
     C                   PARM      'DSPLIBL'     cmd               7  
     C     RTNVALUE      PARM      7             cmdLen           15 5
       *inLR = *ON;
       return;

Expected output:

**FREE
       Dcl-S idx          Packed(5:0) inz;
         idx = idx + 1;
         cmd = 'DSPLIBL';
         cmdLen = 7;
         RTNVALUE = cmdLen;
         QCMD(cmd:RNTVALUE);
       *inLR = *ON;
       return;

[BrianGodsend]

Note, the moving the CALL statement appears to be inconsistent. A trigger to make something bad happen seems to be:

• Having only a C/FREE and free form statements following the CALL
• Having no blank/comment lines following the PARM statements for the CALL, only executable C-Specs

The odd behaviors include:

• The CALL statement is moved up one line
• The CALL statement is doubled (one call placed before the previous line, then the call in the proper location)
• The statement following the CALL have the wrong indentation.

[BrianGodsend]

This is may be a duplicate of #6.