Ability to easily create a data structure with a null field map to correspond to a record’s DS to be used for SQL retrieval.

When defining a structure in RPGLE to be used on SQL I/O such as fetch or select, today we use DCL-DS @myds qualified… containing either subfields or auto generated subfields using a reference to an external file name, ie. extname(‘TABLE’) resulting in a lay-out of the fields for the SQL columns to be retrieved. We  select or fetch (select * into :@myds from table) or (select name, address, state into :@myds from table) into the data structure. If there are null fields, it would be helpful to programmers, if an RPG LIKEDS keyword could be used to define a null indicator data structure to correspond to the fields in structure defined to hold the database record. I believe something like this exists for record level access files using LIKEREC? Is it possible to do similar with the LIKEDS keyword? 

Today the SQL for handling nulls uses something like this:

(select * into :@myds :@mydsNull from table) or (select name, address, state into :@myds :@mydsNull from table) this would not change. Only seeking to make a duplicate DS for null indicators, to correspond  to whatever is defined for @myds. 

Maybe  DCL-DS @mydsNull  LIKEDS( @myds: *NULLIND ) qualified; would work, to create a structure containing type indicator, for as many fields as are defined in the companion database @myds DS. The  programmer could reference as:

 IF @mysdnull.name; 

to determine if  name field contained a null value? Rather than hand code separate names, a  programmer would no longer have to manually define null indicator fields named similarly to the database column name, nor code the names followed by indicator fields in the sql. The new support would enable doing (select * into :@myds : @mydsNull from table) but the DS for the null fields would have been created by a single statement. 

Sadly, fixed and free versions of this would be nice for folks who aren’t allowed to use free-format by their managers.