INITACCROSS initialisation for arrays of structures

This could be useful in various situations and could make some code not only more readable but also easier and safer to maintain. There are even some declares in the compiler itself that could be better with this. An additional question/suggestion:

this would allow for declares such as

1 x(3) dimacross static
initacross( ('de','germany')
,('fr','france')
,('sp','spain')
)
,2 y char(2)
,2 z char(40) var
;

but the(3) is not really needed - the compiler can figure this out by counting the number of parenthesized lists in the INITACROSS attribute. So this raises a question:

if a DIMENSION attribute has not been specified, but DIMACROSS has been should the compiler infer the DIMENSION attribute? so this would be allowed

1 x dimacross static
initacross( ('de','germany')
,('fr','france')
,('sp','spain')
)
,2 y char(2)
,2 z char(40) var
;

This would make adding a new entry very easy: just insert the values for that entry in INITACROSS and then the compiler will do the rest.

Perhaps the latter version should be the only acceptable use of INITACROSS? then there would be no need to check the number of dimensions from INITACROSS what has been specified somewhere else - and then we could go further and remove even the need for DIMACROSS??

This could be useful in various situations and could make some code not only more readable but also easier and safer to maintain. There are even some declares in the compiler itself that could be better with this

Your understanding is correct, the "initaccross" should do what "dimacross" does for bounds, allowing, as in my example, to keep related values together instead of some screens down.

I think the intent of this feature would be for situations where you had a declare such as

dcl
1 info(2) static,
2 iso char(2) init( 'AT', 'AF' )
2 name char(30) var init( 'Austria', 'Afghanistan' );

which requires that when a new country is added, that the 2 values would have to be inserted in the correct places but possibly far apart.

However, making additions would be much easier if the declare was

dcl
1 info(2) static
INITACROSS( ( 'AT', 'Austria' )
, ( 'AF', 'Afghanistan' )
),
2 iso char(2),
2 name char(30) var;

Robert, please correct me if I have misunderstood the intent of the RFE.

So, it's too hard to understand that the example is just a plastic short-cut for "INITACROSS (('AT', 'Austria'),('AF', 'Afghanistan'), ..., ('ZW',Zimbadwe'))" ? Sigh...

In your use case the "INITACROSS ((ISO, COUNTRY), (ISO, COUNTRY),...)" is a constant value not the real value. Therefore I fail to see the benefit of having the array init with the a value vs init the array with blank . All the real values of iso and corresponding countries have to rely on a source which the values(ISO,COUNTRY) have to be read from into the array.