Re: NumberField = AlphaField in rpg/free

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Joel Fritz wrote:
> 
> There are a couple of things to watch for with atoi().  It's limited to the
> size of an integer and returns zero when it sees zero or an error.  You
> should use it only when you're already sure you have valid numeric
> characters and won't cause overflow.  atol() handles larger numbers--long
> integers, but has the same error handling.
> 

Actually, on the iSeries, atol() and atoi() both return a 4-byte
integer.  atoll (long-long) returns an 8 byte integer (RPG 20i) and is a
better choice for a general-purpose routine.

On V5R2, look at %int, %inth, %uns, %unsh, %dec, %dech, and %float for
converting character to numeric.  These builtins give an error for
invalid data or overflow (they allow (and ignore) blanks anywhere in the
data, and all except %float allow either leading or trailing signs).