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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Languages - RPG
Created by Guest
Created on Sep 5, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

Add a preserve/overlay operation extender to the EVAL opcode.

When migrating the MOVE and MOVEL opcodes to free format, simple assignments are often the right choice. But in some cases, the MOVEL operation is effectively an integrated/implied substring operation. 

        MOVEL 'ABC'      CHAR20 

Only replaces the first 3 bytes of CHAR20.

However if converting this to free format, then the resulting equivalent expression is:

    %SUBST(CHAR20 : 1 :  %LEN('ABC')) = 'ABC'

If both F2 and Result are fields, then it gets even more ugly:

 

        MOVEL CODE3      CHAR20 

  %SUBST(CHAR20 : (%LEN(CHAR20) - %MIN(%LEN(CODE3) : %LEN(CHAR20))) + 1  : %MIN(%LEN(CODE3) : %LEN(CHAR20))) = CODE3;

What I'm asking for is this:

   eval(S) char20 = code3;

 

Idea priority Urgent
  • Guest
    Feb 5, 2026
    Thank you for taking the time to submit your Idea. However, This Idea does not align with the strategy for future investment in RPG, so it is being closed.

    For fixed-length fields, the %SUBST operation would be simpler. If the result field is longer than factor 2, the MOVEL can be changed to this concatenation of factor 2 and the remainder of the result:
    RESULT = FACTOR2 + %SUBST(RESULT : %LEN(FACTOR2) + 1);

    The complex statement with %LEN and %MIN is needed if the operands are varying length, since the MOVEL operation does not change the length of a varying-length field.

    However, IBM believes that while the requested enhancement might be useful for a generic way of converting MOVEL statements to free-form, it is unlikely that it would be a useful addition to the language.

    - IBM Power Systems Development
    Reply
  • Guest
    Oct 23, 2025

    Using the %left / %right function to the left side has been suggested here
    https://ibm-power-systems.ideas.ibm.com/ideas/IBMI-I-3999

    I find this suggestion is better.

    1 reply
  • Guest
    Oct 20, 2025

    I always thought it would be better to allow %left() and %right() on the left side of an evaluation; in fact, I keep trying to code it that way but the compiler hates it!

    %left( char20: %len( code3 ) ) = code3;

     

    Reply

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