data pointer attributes

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
I have had cause to materialize the data attributes of a data pointer. ( scalar 
type, length, decimal precision ).

Initially, I used MATPTR to do this. But this method gives me too much info: 
obj name, ctx name, ptr offsect, ... )  Looking directly at the 16 bytes of the 
data pointer, I see that the scalar attributes of the pointer are stored in the 
first 8 bytes.

Pos 1 of the 16 bytes contains the scalar type. If you AND(S) X'0F' this byte, 
you get a value that matches the scalar type returned by MATPTR.

Pos 5 contains the precision of the numeric scalar.

Pos 6 contains the length of the numeric scalar.

Pos 5 - 6 contains the length of a character scalar.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any mistakes with this?

Also, any logical reason why CMPNV and CMPBLA do not accept a data pointer as 
its operand, while CPYNV and CPYBLA do?


-Steve Richter


--