Re: Space pointers

From: John Taylor <jtaylor@rpg2java.com>
> I'm building a service program (in RPG) with the intent of simplying the
use
> of dynamic heap storage. One of the first things I've come across is the
> need to determine the amount of storage already allocated to a basing
> pointer. Since there is nothing in RPG, or the C runtime, that provides
this
> information, I'm hoping that MI may provide a solution.
>

in general, there is no size as such associated with a basing pointer.
You can (say in MI) declare anything you like based on the same pointer:
DCL DD  HUGE-CHUCK  CHAR(100000) BAS(.PTR)  or
DCL DD  TINY-PIECE  CHAR(1) BAS(.PTR)

When you try to ACCESS the data, you may get an exception of you go
outside of the underlying space. It is possible to get the size of the space
system object, but I'm not sure that that is what you want.

Since you are working with heaps, the MATHSAT (Materialize Heap
Space Attribute) instruction is possibly a solution. The MI manual
is online at: http://www.as400.ibm.com/tstudio/tech_ref/mi/