RE: 'B' being deprecated

Ron wondered:

>Can you give me a source for the 'B' type being deprecated.
>We do need to
>fix some programs and I could use some ammunition for getting
>the time to
>implement changes.

I don't think there's an official "deprecation" list for RPG (although
stacker select doesn't seem to work anymore...) but "binary" as a data type
is a Bad Idea because of the way RPG implements binary (B) numbers.  The RPG
IV Reference V5R1, page 181:

"Processing of a Program-Described Binary Input Field
 Every input field read in binary format is assigned a field length (number
of digits) by the compiler. A length of 4 is assigned to a 2-byte binary
field; a length of 9 is assigned to a 4-byte binary field, if the field is
not defined elsewhere in the program. Because of these length restrictions,
the highest decimal value that can be assigned to a 2-byte binary field is
9999 and the highest decimal value that can be assigned to a 4-byte binary
field is 999 999 999. In general, a binary field of n digits can have a
maximum value of n 9s. This discussion assumes zero decimal positions."

This means that you can't use the full (integer) size of the field - big
binary numbers get truncated.
  --buck