Binary vs. Integer Parameters

[bvining@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Bill,

>From the System API Reference, Programming Tips for Binary Data, in
chapter 2:

"In the API parameter tables in this book, BINARY(2) and BINARY(4)
 represent numeric data.  These parameters must be signed, 2- or 4-byte
 numeric values with a precision of 15 (halfword) or 31 (fullword)
 bits and one high-order bit for the sign..."

so BINARY in the sense of system APIs refers not to RPGs definition of
binary (B) but rather a generic, but explicit, definition.  RPGs integer
(I) datatype matches this definition of BINARY; RPGs binary (B) does
not.  To answer your secondary question, yes -- APIs can, and do, return
data that overflows the RPG binary definition.

The QSYSINC QRPGLESRC includes currently continue to use binary (B) as
integer (I) was not supported back in some V3 releases (I believe they
were introduced in V3R6).  Due to all the wonderful enhancements to ILE
RPG over the last several releases I think it would be nice to update
the RPG QSYSINC includes though that would probably require using a new
source file as incompatible changes would occur if the current ILE RPG
source was simply replaced by more current techniques (Integers, Based
structures rather than storage allocating structures, etc.).

Bruce Vining

>
>John,
>
>> . . . So, if you define it as being a 4B field, then if the API (or
>whatever) returns
>> a value larger than 9,999 it would be truncated with unpredictable results.
>> If you define the field as 5I however, there is no truncation possible. . .
>>
>
>Okay, makes sense, so why then are the parameters for the API's defined
>binary?  And
>the follow up question, since the API parameters are defined as binary, isn't
>the
>quantity/value limitation therein inheirant (or would it be possible that even
>though
>the API's specify binary, they may pass back information that would overflow a
>binary
>field, but not an integer)?
>
>Bill
>

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