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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Languages - RPG
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 26, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Enhance %CONCAT to support an integer for number of blanks

The %CONCAT built-in function is helpful to turn a list of values into a CSV, blank or other delimited list.  The *BLANK and *NONE optional 1st argument/parameter is helpful. 

This request is to add an option to that first parameter of the number of blanks the developer wants to insert between each concatenated value.

 variable = %CONCAT(2 : val1 : val2 : val3);

This would embed 2 blanks.

Why? The fixed format CAT opcode, supports a "number of blanks" parameter in Factor 2. Adding this new "number of blanks" option to %CONCAT would allow a nearly direct conversion from CAT in fixed format to %CONCAT in free format. Which would help elevate some of the brain pain when converting CAT to free format.  

 Thank you.

Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Apr 27, 2026
    Thank you for taking the time to submit your Idea. However, it is being declined. The number of blanks operand for the CAT opcode does not simply mean to insert N blanks between the operands. It also implies that the factor-1 operand is trimmed before the required blanks are applied to the result.

    The following program demonstrates how %TRIMR is needed for the factor-1 operand of %CONCAT. The program is using 5 for the number of blanks to make it easier to see what is happening.

    C movel 'hello' fld1 10
    C movel 'world' fld2 10
    C fld1 cat fld2:5 fld3 20
    dsply ('CAT opcode : ' + fld3);

    fld3 = %concat(' ' : fld1 : fld2);
    dsply ('%concat 5 blanks : ' + fld3);

    fld3 = %concat(' ' : %trimr(fld1) : fld2);
    dsply ('%concat 5 blanks + %trim: ' + fld3 );

    return;

    The program displays the following:

    DSPLY CAT opcode : hello world
    DSPLY %concat 5 blanks : hello world
    DSPLY %concat 5 blanks + %trim: hello world

    For the rare cases where the number of blanks is a constant greater than one, a conversion can code a literal with
    the required number of blanks. For the very rare cases where the number of blanks is a variable, a conversion can add a variable called "BLANKS" and use %LEFT(BLANKS:N) as the first operand of %CONCAT.

    - IBM Power Systems Development
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