On Sunday, 96/01/07, Darin McBride wrote to David Noon about "REXX
syntax-checker" as follows:

DM>  DN> Since the variable RC is used by the REXX run-time to report the
DM>  DN> ERRORLEVEL of external commands, it is not always wise to use it
DM>  DN> as a program variable. Perhaps Ret_code, or some other non-system
DM>  DN> name might be more appropriate.
DM> 
DM> I believe that if you were to use 'call SysFunctionToTestError',
DM> and SysFunctionToTestError was in REXXUTIL, rc is set the same  as it
DM> shows above anyway.  I could be mistaken, but... if  I'm not, then
DM> there's no difference - it gets overwritten  anyway.

Hi Darin,

You are mistaken I'm afraid. The variable RESULT is the one that gets
modified when a function is CALLed and returns a result anyway. The
variable RC is used by the external subcommand handler to pass back an
ERRORLEVEL from an external command.

It is best programming practice to modify neither of them yourself.

Regards

Dave


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