Another Infocenter Rant (was DDS for DSPF WRDWRAP)

My frustration is simpler Jon.  I've already bookmarked the DDS page, so I
can get there with one click.

But my interest was in the varying field length.  I didn't yet know the
keyword VARLENGTH.   So I did a search on Varying, expecting the search to
be limited to the book I had open.    Sheeeessshhh....  wrong!!
 
  
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Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@MartinVT.com
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Sunday, January 19, 2003 01:00:04 PM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: DDS for DSPF WRDWRAP
 
>> The Display file references this field. The dspf won' compile.


For reasons that I do not understand Varying fields are not supported on
display files (unless there's some secret I don't know). You have two
options, use a fixed field and eval the contents of the display field from
the varying. On return remember to do varying = %TrimR(fixed). The
alternative - which avoids the outbound assignment but not the inbound
trim - is to map the fixed portion of the varying field with the name used
on the display - like so:


D DS
D Varying 40a Varying
D DispField 40a Overlay(Varying:3)

/free
ExFmt Whatever; // format Whatever uses "DispField"
Varying = %TrimR(DispField); // Trim content on input (use %Trim if reqd)

I understand your frustration with InfoCenter on this topic. The only good
thing I can say is that at least the DDS reference comes up about number 7
in the list now. When I tried it on V5R1 it came up (I think) number 22
after goodness knows how many references to Tivoli among other nonsense. I
finished up in the Rochester Usability Lab after a little tirade on that
subject. I think the main problem is that all indexed words keywords have
equal weight to the search engine - they are supposed to be looking at it -
but it is an IBM standard search engine and it is pretty awful. I now use
Google and restrict the search to the ibm.com domain. Most searches produce
the right answer in the first few hits. Note to IBM - "Buy Google"!

Jon Paris
Partner400