Re: Logical File with Field being substringed as a Key

[Pete Hall <pbhall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 13:24 03/24/2000 , Debbie Panco wrote:
>When using a logical files substring function, is there anyway to further
>define that substringed portion as numeric.  We have a situation where we
>sometimes want to pick some information out of a character field and use it
>as input into a sequel.  We then often want to do calculations on that
>information.  If we could use the logical to redefine the alpha data as
>numeric, that would help immensely.

It's been a long time, but as I recall, you can redefine a character field 
as zoned, and then further redefine the zoned value as packed if necessary. 
Therefore, I would guess that you may need to substring the value into a 
character field and then redefine that again. You could also create a view 
with SQL and cast the substring value. Watch out though. There's nothing to 
prevent invalid data from popping up in your new numeric field. The AS/400 
(at least at the application level) isn't very forgiving with data exceptions.
Pete Hall
pbhall@execpc.com
http://www.execpc.com/~pbhall
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