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4
VOTE
Not supported for the current status
Status Functionality already exists
Workspace IBM i
Categories Languages - RPG
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 26, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Merged idea
This idea has been merged into another idea. To comment or vote on this idea, please visit IBMI-I-3999 Allow %right, %left, and %subdt to left of assignment operator =.

Allow %LEFT built-in function to be used on the left-side of the assignment statement Merged

When migrating to free format RPG IV, converting some operations like MOVEL and CAT need to be converted to what amounts to a Substring operation for the target variable. That means aggravating calculations to determine the length argument for %SUBST. And %SUBST is a bit rigid in its parameter requirements. 

So this request is to support %LEFT as an lValue (left-side) of the assignment. For example:

%LEFT(Region : 4) = PREFIX + DIV;

If PREFIX, DIV and REGION are all character, this greatly cuts down on the effectively 3 statements we need to code to replace a simple CAT or MOVEL opcode in Free format.

 

Idea priority High

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