RE: %CHAR()

["Westdorp, Tom" <tom.westdorp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All I want is a bif that turn numeric into character.  Position by position
in a field, with NO editing.  No decimal points, no commas, no signs,
nothing.  And then a bif from character to numeric.  Just like MOVE works.

I'm not trying to beat anyone up Hans, quite the opposite.  Really.  But I
don't understand why we need a %char as a short form of %editc.  There are
lots of bif's on various wish lists, why do we have one that's just the
short form of another?  If we want the MOVE's out of the code then we need a
bif for it's conversion function.  MOVE doesn't edit, but it will convert
the type.  Where's the bif equivalent?  Rather we have bif's with expressed
editing in %editc and implied (and undocumented) editing in %char.
Logically, from my perspective, the MOVE's conversion function would be
%char and %num and they would do a simple (ha!) conversion by character
within field.

-----Original Message-----
From: boldt@ca.ibm.com [mailto:boldt@ca.ibm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2000 8:20 AM
To: rpg400-l@midrange.com
Subject: RE: %CHAR()



Tom wrote:
>This seems *VERY counter-intuitive to me.  If I just want a
>number literally converted to character I use %editc and tell
>it not to edit (which would then just be c), but if I want it
>zero suppressed (aka edited) and converted to character I use
>%char???  And the main bif for a straight conversion is not
>%char but rather %editc with an edit code specified to do
>nothing???  Now I understand why this isn't in the manuals,
>because when you write it down it just doesn't make sense.  ;-)
>
>I now understand how this works, but as to why <scratch head>
>
>btw, Thanks Barbara.  I don't want to have this construed as
>'getting on your case' or anything, I appreciate your explanation
>and guidance in this matter and others.  This one seems bass
>ackwards to me, but I'll get over it.  There's a lot of stuff in
>life that doesn't make sense to me... e.g.  Michael Douglas &
>Catherine Zeta Jones.  But that's off topic.

Actually, if you want to beat someone up on this, you need to talk
to me on this issue.  I was the one who designed %CHAR this way,
since it seemed like the most natural approach to take.  Basically,
I foresaw the use of %CHAR within character string manipulation,
so you could build natural sentences easily using string
concatenation, as in:

       string = 'You have ' + %char(points) + ' points left!';

Using %TRIM(%EDITC(points:'P')) in this situation is clearly more
awkward.  Furthermore, why should %CHAR work the same way as any
one specific variation of %EDITC anyways?  And if it did, which
variation should it mimic?  The current choice is simple:  Use
%CHAR for "natural" editing in conjunction with other string
manipulation.  Or use %EDITC or %EDITW for more specific control.

Nonetheless, I do see the need for improvement in numeric editing.
Lately, several people have asked for leading zeros in their
editing, and now we have no good, easy way of accomplishing that.
Perhaps a *ZEROFILL option on the %EDITC built-in?

(I'm not really satisfied with any current alternatives, since
none can easily handle the thousands-separator.  (%EDITW almost
works.))

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com

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