Re: CMD-parm in SBMJOB

Christian Zander (KMZ AG) wrote:
> 
> Hello everybody,
> 
> I want to inform you that since V3R2 and V3R7 there is a nice little problem
> with long text-variables in CL-Programs submitted with SBMJOB CMD(Call xxx
> ('jshdfks')).
> 

Christian,

This little piece of excitement has been around a lot longer than V3.  I
ran into it hard under V2R1, and I vaguely recall seeing the problem (or
a similar incarnation) in S/38 CPF.


>  I found this problem using a 40 character long variable used as an
> input-parameter for an cl-program submitted. The variable contains at the
> moment of the SBMJOB only blanks. The submitted program gets 34 blanks and
> some data! If one would always read the fu... manuals, one would have known

I'm surprised that you got _34_ blanks.  As I understand it, when a
character parameter that is longer than 32 bytes is passed from a SBMJOB
CMD parm, bytes 33 though the end of string will not be intiialized by
the OS/400.  

Yes it's a goofy implementation, but there must be a really good reason
for it, because it has been an issue for a long time and IBM has not
seen fit to fix it.

The work-around is, as you quoted:

>       For CL character variables larger than 32 characters where trailing
>        blanks are significant, create a variable that is one character larger
>        than needed and substring a non-blank character into the last
>        position.  This prevents the significant blanks from being truncated.
>        The called program should ignore the extra character because it is
>        beyond the length expected.
> 

Hoakey?  yes, but so is the problem that the solution addresses.


jte


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* John Earl             - Gig Harbor, Washington*
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