Re: *Zeros

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jerry,

> So I'm thinking (always dangerous), "Oh, *Zeros is a character field."
> But, then, I remembered another line in this same program (and similar
> lines in tons of other programs:
> w#ladj = *Zeros;

Hmmm...When I think of *Zeros, I don't think of it as being the same thing 
as the number 0.

You see, *Zeros is neither character nor numeric.  *Zeros is a special
value that tells the computer to fill the entire field (no matter what the
data type) to zeroes. The compiler may generate different code,
depending on the data type.

What sort of code would it generate when it's only one of many operands in 
an expression?  That's where it gets murky.  There's no field to set to 
all zeroes, is there? It's an expression, not a simple assignment where 
there's a particular field to set.

You have this:

   w#ladj = *Zeros - dlsqty * dlstks;

I know it means "fill the whole field with zeroes" but there isn't really 
a field for it to fill!  I suppose it might fill the intermediate result 
with zeroes before moving on to the next step...  But, I don't find it 
intuitive.

Anyway...  I don't have a solution (other than using 0 in place of 
*Zeroes, which you've already done) but I thought you might find this 
perspective interesting.