RE: Data structure gets populated for a junk value

Sadiq:

<snip>
When you have a field of length say eleven and want to define in terms
of
packed decimal then we need to calculate with  formula i.e. N+1 / 2 = 6
length 

When you look at a field of 6p then want to determine what length of
value
would it accommodate then it would be N X 2 - 1 = 11 length 
</snip>

If you define a field as follows:
     d field           s              6p 2 inz
The field is a 6-digit value with two decimal places (max value
9,999.99).

If you define a field this way:
     d field           s         1    6p 2 inz
The field is now 11-digits with two decimal places (max value
999,999,999.99).

The first way indicates a 6-digit field with 2 decimal places.  The
second indicates that 6-bytes of storage are used for a packed field,
which is big enough to hold 11-digits with 2 decimal places.

If you only specify the length that indicates the number of digits.  If
you indicate start and end positions, you get physical storage size
(your [n*2]-2 calculation).

--Bruce Guetzkow