RE: TESTN

I don't often say ditto, but I have to agree with Dan.  

I've never seen a useful way to use TESTN until your solution, and have been 
relying on using an array and testing each byte (in RPGIII).

This is why I am a member of this list.  Thank you.

Regards,
Rich
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of D.BALE@handleman.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 3:03 PM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: TESTN


Scott, I love that idea!  Simple and elegant.  I can't tell you the number of
times I've cursed TESTN for this problem.  Heck, you could make it a lot more
universal and define WORK as a 31-byte alpha, instead of 4.  Another tip for
my toolbox!

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952

-------------------------- Original Message --------------------------

'12G' is a character representation of the number -127.  When you
MOVE a negative number to a character field, it changes the value of
the "zone" portion of rightmost byte to reflect that its a negative
number.  (The change will usually result in a letter from A-R or the "{"
character.)

Therefore "12G" is a valid number.

If you only want to test for valid positive numbers, do something like
this:

C                   MOVEL     '12G'         SIN               3
C                   MOVE      *zeros        WORK              4
C                   MOVEL     SIN           WORK
C                   TESTN                   WORK                  81
c                   eval       *inlr = *on

By putting that extra zero at the end, the "G" ends up in the middle
of the number, and will signal an error.


On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Lurton Keel wrote:

> Here is a program.
> C                   MOVEL     '12G'         SIN               3
> C                   TESTN                      SIN                  81
> c                    eval          *inlr = *on
> indicator 81 is in pos 71-72.
> My problem is that in the above example, indicator 81 is on even though
> there is a "G" in the field.
> The RPG reference says.
> "Positions 71 and 72: Either the result field contains numeric characters,
> or it contains a 1-character field that consists of a letter from A to R."
> What's up
>
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