RE: Variable Length Fields In V3R7 ILE RPG

["Reger, Bill" <breger@xxxxxxxxxx>]

This is from the ILE RPG Reference manual:

2.3.11 Converting Database Variable-Length Fields
 
The ILE RPG compiler can internally define variable-length character or
graphic fields from an externally described file or data structure as 
fixed-length character fields. Although converting variable-length character
and graphic fields to fixed-length format is not necessary, CVTOPT 
remains in the language to support programs written before variable-length
fields were supported.
 
You can convert variable-length fields by specifying *VARCHAR (for
variable-length character fields) or *VARGRAPHIC (for variable-length 
graphic fields) on the CVTOPT control specification keyword or command
parameter. When *VARCHAR or *VARGRAPHIC is not specified, or 
*NOVARCHAR or *NOVARGRAPHIC is specified, variable-length fields are not
converted to fixed-length character and can be used in your ILE 
RPG program as variable-length.
 
The following conditions apply when *VARCHAR or *VARGRAPHIC is specified:
 
   If a variable-length field is extracted from an externally described
file or an externally described data structure, it is declared in an ILE RPG

    program as a fixed-length character field.
 
   For single-byte character fields, the length of the declared ILE RPG
field is the length of the DDS field plus 2 bytes.
 
   For DBCS-graphic data fields, the length of the declared ILE RPG field
is twice the length of the DDS field plus 2 bytes.
 
   The two extra bytes in the ILE RPG field contain a unsigned integer
number which represents the current length of the variable-length field. 
    Figure 95 shows the ILE RPG field length of variable-length fields.
 
   For variable-length graphic fields defined as fixed-length character
fields, the length is double the number of graphic characters.

William K. Reger
Senior Project Manager
Levitz Furniture Corporation
Phone:  (561) 994-5114
E-mail:  breger@levitz.com <mailto:breger@levitz.com> 

                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Gary Monnier [mailto:GaryMon@powertechgroup.com]
                Sent:   Thursday, July 13, 2000 12:37 PM
                To:     Midrange List Server
                Subject:        Variable Length Fields In V3R7 ILE RPG

                We have a customer running OS/400 V3R7 and wishs to utilize
variable length
                fields in a data file.  Anyone know if, and how, they can
use ILE RPG to set
                variable length fields from ILE RPG?

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