Create a varying length field with the length from a fixed length field

The CAAC has reviewed this IBM Idea and recommends that IBM not implement this request.

There is a variety of programing solutions such as defining a constant value.

Background: The COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CAAC has a key role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual IBM Ideas on the broader IBM i community and has therefore reviewed your Idea.

For more information about CAAC, see www.common.org/caac

Carmelita Ruvalcaba - CAAC Program Manager

Another way of doing it could be that it is possible to override the format like this

dcl-s varField           like(fixedField) varchar;

dcl-s packedField        like(zonedField) packed;

The characteristics of the field is inherited but the format is overridden to varying or packed format.

IBM will use this Idea as input to planning, but no commitment is made or implied. This Idea will be updated in the future if IBM implements it. IBM will use votes and comments from others in the community to help prioritize this Idea.

If this Idea is implemented, it would most likely involve new syntax for the LIKE keyword.

- IBM Power Systems Development

That works for me, but FixedField must be defined in the same procedure, and it must be defined before the dcl-pi.

ctl-opt nomain;
dcl-proc p;
dcl-s fixedfield char(10);
dcl-pi *n varchar(%len(fixedfield));
end-pi;
return 'x';
end-proc;

If Fixedfield is a global field, you could define a named constant with the length, and use that named constant in the procedure.

ctl-opt nomain;
dcl-s FixedField char(10);
dcl-c FixedFieldLen %LEN(FixedField);
dcl-proc p;
dcl-pi *n varchar(FixedFieldLen);
end-pi;
return 'x';
end-proc;

- Barbara Morris

But it's not working on parm definition:

Dcl-pi *n varchar(%len(FixedField));

Thank you very much for the tip how to do it.

I will suggest that it is included in the RPG manuals.

You can use %LEN to get the length of the fixed-length field.

dcl-s fixedField char(40);
dcl-s varField varchar(%len(fixedField));

If you want the defined length of a varying field, you have to use %LEN(*MAX).

dcl-s varField2 varchar(40);
dcl-s fixedField2 char(%len(varField2 : *max));

However ... To use %LEN like this in a definition, the field specified in the %LEN keyword has to already be defined. So if the %LEN field is coming from an externally-described file, you'd have to define a externally-described data structure and use the subfields for %LEN.

dcl-f myDbFile;
dcl-f myScreens workstn;

dcl-ds myFileDefs extname('MYDBFILE') qualified template;
end-ds;
// might have to define several data structures for screen fields, one for each format
dcl-ds screen1Defs extname('MYSCREENS' : 'SCREEN1' : *all) qualified template;
end-ds;

dcl-s varField varchar(%len(myFileDefs.someField));
dcl-s varField2 varchar(%len(screen1Defs.someOtherField));

- Barbara Morris