Re: variable length field - how to rewrite a record

>From COPY statement:

06 A0403X-MEMO-TEXT.
(Variable length field)
49 A0403X-MEMO-TEXT-LENGTH
PIC S9(4) COMP-4.
49 A0403X-MEMO-TEXT-DATA
PIC X(1619).
A0403X MEMO TEXT




In debug, the length field (comp-4) is zero

I have the following line incrementing the length:

add 81 to A0403X-MEMO-TEXT-LENGTH

in debug after this add stmt executes, the value is shown as

Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 49 A0403X-MEMO-TEXT-LENGTH
Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : SIGNED BINARY
Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 2
' -5915'




How do I properly increment the length of the field?? Where is -5915 coming from?? I think it should show 81, correct?

Should the 81 be coded as x'00000081' or x'00000051' or something else???

I tried

add X'00000051' to A0403X-MEMO-TEXT-LENGTH

but get compiler error

234 MSGID: LBL1447 SEVERITY: 30 SEQNBR: 022100
Message . . . . : Statement incomplete; last valid item found
before 'X"00000051"'. Statement ignored.
234 MSGID: LBL0018 SEVERITY: 00 SEQNBR: 022100
Message . . . . : Input ignored starting with 'X"00000051"'.



Thanks



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