RE: Passing Parms to an RPG Program

["Bale, Dan" <DBale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And a very common beginner's error.

Passing numeric parameters can be tricky.  From the command line, you cannot
pass a numeric variable in the form you used.  Typically, program parameters
are always defined as character and, then, numerics are moved to / from the
character parameter variable.  If you know that a program is only called
from another program (and never from a command line), then you can leave the
parameter variables numeric, although they must match in length.  They might
also need to be matched by the numeric format (zoned decimal vs. packed vs.
...)

In a pinch, you _can_ pass a numeric parameter from a command line.  To do
this, you have to use a hexadecimal representation.  Since I always let my
numeric values default to packed, I'm not certain how you'd have to pass
your zoned decimal value.  If I've got a numeric parameter defined as
3-digit packed, and I want to pass the number 57 to PGMA,  I'll use the
following form at the command line:

       CALL PGMA PARM(X'057F')

BTW, somebody correct me if I'm wrong on calling X'057F' a hexadecimal
representation.  It's really a split-byte representation.  I.e. decimal 57
converts to hexadecimal 39.  

- Dan Bale

-----Original Message-----
From: a b [mailto:eagle_291@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 8:15 AM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Passing Parms to an RPG Program


Beginners question:

I'm attempting to call an RPG application from the
command line with a parm, but I continue to get an
error indicating that I have a data decimal error. 
I'm not quite sure if I'm doing this right or not but
essentially I'm doing the following:

 CALL PGM(ALIBARY/PROGRAMX) PARM(9)  

I need to pass a numeric variable to my RPG program
that looks like this:

 
*******************************************************fafile
  UF A E K DISK
fbfile   UF A E K DISK
*******************************************************dcustid
    s      10 0                       
 
*********************************************************
Mainline                                              
                     
c     *entry       plist
c                  parm        custid

C     custid       chain       afile
c                  if          not %found
c          ***************************
c           ************************
c                  else                   c           
      return
c                  endif


Is this right... or am I missing something that I
should have?


Any help would greatly be apprecaited.


Thanks
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