Target for numeric operation too small...hello, Toronto?

["Reeve Fritchman" <reeve@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hans, with great respect I say your answer blames the victim.

This is a possibility for many programs converted to RPG IV, and it's not
necessarily a "logic" error.  You're asking us to EVALuate every line of
converted code and consider if a numeric overflow could occur.  I haven't
had many overflows, but I've had enough to know it's a pain.

The manner in which RPG IV presents this error is unfriendly, and IMHO this
issue is one of the biggest reasons people aren't moving to RPG IV and ILE
RPG.  I think this issue needs some consideration in the Lab.

Regards,
Reeve

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-admin@midrange.com [mailto:rpg400-l-admin@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of boldt@ca.ibm.com
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 10:05 AM
To: rpg400-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Target for numeric operation too small

John wrote:
>Forgive me if this is a stupid question.  I am relatively new to RPG IV
>(RPG/400 Veteran).  I occasionally get the error "Target  for numeric
>operation too small to hold result"  when my result field is too small.
Is
>there anyway to avoid getting this error besides the obvious, "make my
>result field larger".

Yes, there is a way to avoid getting the overflow exception:
Fix the logic errors in your program that are causing the
numeric overflows.

RPG III was too "kind" in that it did not tell you when your
numerics overflowed, and instead quietly truncated values.

If you really do need your numerics truncated (and I really
can't think of any situation where truncation might be
useful and there isn't a better alternative), convert your
numeric value to character using something like
%EDITC(...:'X') and %SUBST the desired number of right-most
characters.

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

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