Where should the type information be 160

True enough, John, but it isn't as if you are warned that you may not know what you are doing,

tt: proc options(main); DCL (A, B, C) CHAR(3); A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; put skip list(C); end; *EXIT*

A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; ..........................^ %PLIG-W-NOTARITH, Implicit conversion. A nonarithmetic expression, A, has been used in a context requiring an arithmetic value. at line number 3 in file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN.PLI;1

A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; ..............................^ %PLIG-W-NOTARITH, Implicit conversion. A nonarithmetic expression, B, has been used in a context requiring an arithmetic value. at line number 3 in file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN.PLI;1

A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; ^ %PLIG-W-buttIGNCVT, Implicit conversion in an buttignment, a FIXED DEC value has been converted to a CHARACTER target. at line number 3 in file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN.PLI;1

%PLIG-I-SUMMARY, Completed with 0 errors, 3 warnings, and 0 informational messages. %LINK-W-WRNERS, compilation warnings in module TT file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN.OBJ;1

Now if you really want character representation of numbers PL-I has the PICTURE data type

tt: proc options(main); DCL (A, B, C) picture '(3)Z'; A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; put skip list(C); end; *EXIT*

A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; ....^ %PLIG-W-buttIGNCVT, Implicit conversion in an buttignment, a constant '111' has been converted to a FIXED DEC target. at line number 3 in file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN2.PLI;1

A = '111'; B = '222'; C = A + B; ...............^ %PLIG-W-buttIGNCVT, Implicit conversion in an buttignment, a constant '222' has been converted to a FIXED DEC target. at line number 3 in file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN2.PLI;1

%PLIG-I-SUMMARY, Completed with 0 errors, 2 warnings, and 0 informational messages. %LINK-W-WRNERS, compilation warnings in module TT file SYS$SYSDEVICE:TOM.SCRATCHJOHN2.OBJ;1

333

The warnings are there because the buttignments should read A = 111; for example.

I agree, PL-I was rarely taught. Indeed you can find PL-I programs that would almost pbutt through a fortran parser and you can find programs that look like Cobol with semicolons. But it terms of commonly used languages, it comes closest to that practical design and bounds checking is included:-)