Re: Variable zone in message file

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The definitions of the length are in the message description, so DSPMSGD 
will tell you what they are. It is usually assumed that you know these in 
advance and hard-code the sizes. Are you retrieving the same message all 
the time? If so, this works fine.

Are the variable zones (also called field data in US systems) defined as 
fixed length? If so, you are fine. They can be *CHAR with varying length, 
in which case the first 2 bytes contain the length of the text.

It is possible to DSPMSGD to a spooled file, copy to PF, then parse the 
file and get the sizes. But a single message usually does not change a lot 
- IBM almost never changes these things - so you should be able to depend 
on the hard-coded settings. Even varying length field data depends on the 
fixed length data.

HTH
Vern

At 01:41 PM 9/22/2004, you wrote:
> We have a message file with a defined message that contains 2 variable
> zones (&1 and &2). We use RTVMSG to get the formatted message after
> previoulsy send the params values for the variables zones. Everything
> works great, because the values are hard coded. But, what we need is to
> know the length of those 2 variable zones before calling RTVMSG. Is
> there a way ??
>
> Patrick Paris
> Programmeur - Analyste
> Cascades Inc
> patrick_paris@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> (819)363-6100    int: 4964
> --
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
> or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.