Re: Issues after going from TR4 to TR7 -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi Roger

You describe precisely what we need to do if we do *not* use a command - and I must admit that sometimes I still don't take the time to write a command, can't say why.

You make the point about a character in position *length plus 1* - this is how one gets the full length and still have a useful test value. The reason for the terminator is, IIRC, that trailing blanks in SBMJOB CMD() or on a command line are stripped, and everything after the characters you *do* enter is whatever is in memory. Also, if you do as the CL manual and Stephen describe, you might not have valid test values.

An example is in order - if the program parameter for an IFS path is 256 long, and if you specify '/home/usrdp2/somefile.txt', you will get a big surprise, usually. So you will get the next 7 characters as blanks, because you are guaranteed up to 32, but the rest is who-knows-what. Putting anything in position 257 makes sure that you are reserving the full length of the parameter in memory. In my experience, this terminator does not become the 1st character of the next parameter.

And this is why commands are the thing to use - the size of command parameters is guaranteed to be reserved in memory. So you can have test values that are sensible.

The details are in the *CL Overview and Concepts* manual, in the *Controlling flow and communicating between programs and procedures* section. https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ssw_ibm_i_75/pdf/rbam6pdf.pdf

*NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!*

Sorry for the shouting, but this is a /_*BIG DEAL*_/!
In the 7.4 (and better explained in the 7.5 manual) is something new with CL - we can include data type and length in literal parameters on a CALL. It says that the call has to be in a compiled ILE CL program. I took a shot at doing it from a command line, and it works there, too. Maybe QCMD is ILE? Here's what the manual says, page 290 at the link above -

*Passing parameters with type and length specified explicitly*
For a Call (CALL) command or a Call Bound Procedure (CALLPRC)
command that is issued from a compiled ILE CL procedure, you can
specify type and length explicitly for constant or expression
parameters to tell how the parameters are passed to the called program.

This is the program - which itself was OPM -

pgm parm(&char100 &dec5p2)

dcl &char100 *char 100
dcl &dec5p2 *dec (5 2)

endpgm

Anyhow, here's the command I entered -

call call_lits (('this is too short' (*char 100)) (24 (*dec 5 2)))

Without the type and length, here is the first parameter -

EVAL &char100
&CHAR100 =
....5...10...15...20...25...30...35...40...45...50...55...60
     1   'this is too short █                      '
    61   ' '
The blob there is actually X'24' from the 2nd parameter, which is passed as packed 15,5 for literals.

With the type and length, here is how the parameters look in debug, hex and alpha -

> EVAL &char100 :x
     00000     A38889A2 4089A240 A3969640 A2889699   - this is too shor
     00010     A3404040 40404040 40404040 40404040   - t
     00020     40404040 40404040 40404040 40404040   -
     00030     40404040 40404040 40404040 40404040   -
     00040     40404040 40404040 40404040 40404040   -
     00050     40404040 40404040 40404040 40404040   -
     00060     40404040 ........ ........ ........   -     ............
> EVAL &dec5p2 :x
     00000     02400F.. ........ ........ ........   - . ..............

This is awesome!

On 7/29/2023 12:02 AM, Roger Harman wrote:

Creating commands to do this takes away all the issues. Makes life a whole lot easier.

You eliminate the numeric padding issue, the stupid workaround of adding a terminating character - like a "." in position 51 of a dummy field when you want to pass a 50-character field. All those shenanigans just disappear.

User defined commands are the unsung heroes in CL. I always wished there was a direct interface with RPG to invoke them.

Roger Harman
COMMON Certified Application Developer - ILE RPG on IBM i on Power

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L<midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Jim Oberholtzer
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2023 5:13 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Issues after going from TR4 to TR7

That will work, but creating the command is so easy why not make it simple?

On Fri, Jul 28, 2023 at 7:01 PM Stephen Landess<steve_landess@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I was taught to just pass the parms as character and then convert the
character values to numeric in the RPG program.

JDE has a standard subroutine called C0012 which does that conversion that
and passes back the numeric value.

Note that /any/ parameter which is longer than 32 positions must be passed
with the exact length of the defined parm. Otherwise it will screw up the
remaining parameter values and you'll get unpredictable results.

- SJL

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L<midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Mark Waterbury
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2023 4:13 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Issues after going from TR4 to TR7

Dave,

Passing parameters as literal values on a SBMJOB has the same issues and
problems as doing a CALL from a command line... it uses the CL CALL command
... :-o

Just search the archives for problems with passing parameters and SBMJOB.

The "best simple" solution is to write a "command" definition wrapper for
this call.

Hope that helps,

Mark S. Waterbury

On Friday, July 28, 2023 at 05:03:33 PM EDT, Dave Begley <

dave.begley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A CL program submits DGL150R. So it is a batch CL program that is calling
an RPG program.

Dave Begley | IT Manager
HealthSmart | Benefits Management, LLC
Dave.begley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |http://www.healthsmart.com/

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