Re: S/36 Flat file question -- MIDRANGE-L

Think back to changing file formats to Y2K.
I'm pretty sure that what he is trying to do is not modify any existing
lines of code. Perhaps he has a vendor package, missing source, etc.
So, based on Y2K experience, you would create a new table (Physical File).
This new table would have externally defined fields, new date or timestamp
fields, etc. Then you would create a logical (SQL Index) with the old
table name, old column names with the same formats. But it's based off of
this new physical. Worked great.
However, the package I saw this in was not coming from S/36 flat files.
The new table had the columns enlarged, moved, etc. So any CPYF without
checking format, etc would not suffice.
Sure, you could probably create a LF with a lot of string concatenation to
emulate the old table in this flat file conversion. But it would likely be
read only.
"IF" you are not changing the original column order or attributes (such as
size, etc), and you only add new columns to the end of the row, you may be
able to get by without changing your code.
Why "may"? Well if that flat file was using a data structure or some such
thing to store character data into a number you will have issues. This was
a popular thing to do way back in the day when you had a column you never
used (Rhodesian currency conversion rate for example) and you wanted to
overlay that with some character data. This may be hard to comprehend for
younger folks but those of us who used to deal with disk sizes in MB (or
smaller) we did what we had to. With DDS and CRTPF RCLEN(...) you could
get away with this. With SQL it will do data integrity on write and stop
that cold.

On Fri, Mar 6, 2026 at 1:39 PM DEnglander--- via MIDRANGE-L <
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have a S/36-era flat file that I am working on. It has one "field" in
it, and the file name, record format, and the one field are all the same
name. The file is created with a CRTPF statement with no DDS and using the
RCDLEN parameter.

I want to know if it is possible to somehow create a "compatibility" style
LF over this, and update the flat file to a DB2 table or a DDS PF if
needed. Fields need to be enlarged and added.

I can't get an LF to compile using the file name, field, and format all
the same name. Has anyone done this: Create an LF to mimic a flat file
over a DB2/DDS file? I have done it successfully before over an existing
DB2/DDS file, but never a flat file.

Thank you,

Doug

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