RE: Question about VARYING fields in RPG IV

My experience with variable length fields is they save DASD, nothing else.
The AS400 data base manager seems to pad the buffers with blanks in rpg III
& IV.  We have one such beast, a documentation file where that want to write
a book in a single record, yet most of the time only type 30-40 characters.
Changing the record from fixed @ 700 bytes to variable saved 70% +- disk
space on the millions of records we have.  But within the programs, the
fields are padded with blanks to the max defined length of the field.

Christopher K. Bipes            mailto:ChrisB@Cross-Check.com
Sr. Programmer/Analyst          mailto:Chris_Bipes@Yahoo.com
CrossCheck, Inc.                http://www.cross-check.com
6119 State Farm Drive           Phone: 707 586-0551 x 1102
Rohnert Park  CA  94928         Fax: 707 586-1884



-----Original Message-----
From: Ravi Viswanathan [mailto:ravi@spacestar.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 11:53 AM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Question about VARYING fields in RPG IV


Hello,

Can someone explain how VARYING fields work? I have defined a VARYING field
in
an RPG IV/embedded SQL program  as follows:

ITEM    S     25A      VARYING.

I execute the SQL statement and retrieve a value into variable ITEM. The
length
of the value returned could vary from 5 to 25. I then use variable ITEM, in
another SQL select statement to retrieve data from Oracle using Oracle
Access
Manager. The field that I am selecting against, is defined as VARCHAR in
Oracle.
The problem is that field ITEM retains trailing blanks at the end when the
the
value is shorter than 25. Consequently I don't find a hit in Oracle. So, I
have
to %TRIM variable ITEM before using this variable to retrieve from Oracle. I
have the program working but - shouldn't a VARYING field by definition drop
trailing blanks. Otherwise what is the advantage in defining a field as
VARYING.
Why not just go with a standard alpha field definition ?

Thanks



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