Paper on advanced REXX programming

In May, 1994 Quercus Systems' Personal REXX developer Charles Daney wrote a paper on advanced REXX programming for presentation at the 1st Annual OS/2 World Conference in 1994, sponsored by Miller-Freeman. The paper was reprinted in the proceedings of the conference. Since the paper may be of interest to a much wider audience than those who attended the conference and received the proceedings, we are making it available here for download.

The paper deals primarily with two topics.

The first is how to structure data internally in a REXX program using various techniques for handling REXX compound variables, with special emphasis on using native REXX facilities for handling database-like applications without the use of an external database manager.

Some of the subtopics covered include:

• how REXX allows structuring of data
• general explanation of REXX compound variables
• a detailed case study of managing a book database in REXX
• Quercus Systems' REXXLIB functions that facilitate working with compound variables

The second main topic is how to structure REXX programs themselves into multiple files in order to realize the advantages of modularity. This includes the use of interprocess communication techniques for coordination among a group of REXX programs running as separate processes under OS/2.

Some of the subtopics covered include:

• techniques for sharing data among a group of related REXX programs
• using OS/2 semaphores for coordinating access to data
• using OS/2 .INI files for sharing data
• REXX external data queues
• using OS/2 named pipes from REXX
• using REXX macro spaces for creating "libraries" of REXX code

The first part of the paper is mostly applicable to the use of REXX on any platform, though the parts involving REXXLIB apply only in OS/2 at the present time. The second part of the paper deals mainly with OS/2 system facilities and is not very applicable to other platforms.

Most of the information contained in the paper is still current. The paper deals only with "Classic" REXX. When Object REXX is eventually released, new techniques for dealing with some of the problems discussed in the paper will become available, but much of the material will still remain relevant.

The paper is contained in a .ZIP file of approximately 32K in size.

Select here to download the file.

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Last updated: September 18, 1995