RE: RE: RE: SBMJOB is trimming the tailing blanks

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   4. RE: RE: SBMJOB is trimming the tailing blanks (Vernon Hamberg)
>
>OK, Tom. help me here - I created a CL with a
>50-character variable. Then I used the following to submit it:
>
>SBMJOB CMD(CALL PGM(VHAMBERGO/TEST) PARM('36
>characters45678901234567890123456    '))

Vern:

Now try all of these again EXCEPT use variables rather than quoted strings.

<guesswork>
By using variables, you force a kind of expression evaluation. When you simply 
use explicitly quoted strings, I imagine the quote marks are used directly as 
markers. However, variables have no explicit quotes.

Quotes still must be added by internal SBMJOB processing in its CPP under many 
circumstances, though, for example when the variable value has embedded spaces. 
I've never looked to see if quotes are _always_ added, and embedded quotes in 
variable values would complicate it all.

The trouble seems only when the command analyzer must make assumptions about 
the formatting of the request message. If you remove ambiguity, things work 
_fairly_ well. Unfortunately, that's when the biggest value of the CMD() parm 
starts disappearing.

In the cases where you DCL'd a *CHAR(50) and passed a quoted *CHAR(40) with 
trailing blanks, the example with garbage is pretty well understood I think.

The single _extra_ blank that kept appearing...??? Well, somebody with far more 
knowledge than I have would need to explain. I'm going almost totally from 
guesswork out of experience.
</guesswork>

Maybe eventually we'll work out a nice, neat tutorial (FAQ) that clearly 
describes all relevant behavior.

Tom Liotta