Re: Danger! Danger! using IGNDECERR and FIXNBR (was Question about RPGIV in V3R1)

>Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 08:00:47 -0400
>From: boldt@ca.ibm.com
>
>Bill wrote:
>>I have been playing with some of the older programs we have and
>>converting them to RPVIV. Unfortunately some of them need to be
>>compiled with IGNDECERR *YES and this is not working in V3R1's
>>RPGIV.  Has anyone else had this problem?
>
>Try compile option FIXNBR(*ZONED) or FIXNBR(*INPUTPACKED)
>or even FIXNBR(*ZONED *INPUTPACKED).  (The default is
>*NONE.)

These options may stop you from getting inquiry messages, but they
probably won't help you in the long term.  I recently worked
with someone who had been using IGNDECERR(*YES) for years
because of some data structures that were not initialized.  It
turned out they also had a packed/zoned parameter mismatch that
they didn't know about since the decimal-data error that should
have warned them about this error was being caught by the
IGNDECERR(*YES).

I guess their program ran ok with garbage being used for that
parameter because the value "assumed" for the garbage was usually
zero, and their program ran ok with zero.  (!?!)

The way IGNDECERR(*YES) works, you cannot be guaranteed that the
"result" will be the same from one release of the operating
system to the next, or even, I'm told, from one operating system
PTF level to the next.

FIXNBR(*ZONED and *INPUTPACKED) are a bit better since they give
predictable and repeatable results.  The trouble is that they
handle ALL errors, not just the ones you know about.  It's probably
not always the case that a zoned value of X'12345F' should be
interpreted as 240.

In my opinion, whatever reason you have for using IGNDECERR(*YES),
it isn't reason enough.

Sorry about the rant, but I see IGNDECERR and FIXNBR as something
similar to a potion that hides cold symptoms until the cold is
gone and has a side effect of hiding pneumonia symptoms until
you die.

Barbara Morris, IBM Toronto Lab, RPG Compiler Development


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