RE: Varying - Inz mandatory?

I think this problem is one of education and experience. Certainly there are
a handful of things in the latest RPG IV language that are not intuitive to
many or ignored by most. So I think with a little practice you experience
the consequences of certain features and hopefully learn from that
experience. 
I'm just and guilty as anyone; but I do try out most of the new stuff and
then go into debug if necessary, and observe the results. I've found while
the documentation is getting better, it is usually not very clear on the new
features or when it comes to obscure situations. 
I think the issue with VARYING fields embedded in data structures is
producing an unexpected result, but it is producing the right results. Just
like a date field, unless we initialize it, we have a learning experience.
And those can be fun.

Bob Cozzi
Cozzi Consulting
www.rpgiv.com


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Bartell, Aaron L. (TC)
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 8:32 AM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: Varying - Inz mandatory?

<Hans>
Can we change the compiler to give an error message? Sure, it's doable. But 
when you get a successful compile, do you ever bother to look at the 
compile listing and check the severity 10 diags?
</Hans>

With the Java compiler it is the equivalent to a 20 or 30 severity level (or
at least it wont compile through).  I think that would be warranted even if
you are doing a assignment on that field before an IF statement because the
next guy might not be thinking that through.  

Call me ignorant but I guess I never knew that you had to initialize a data
structure or a subfield to get valid data in numeric fields.  I just assumed
it would be like stand alone fields which _do_ get initialized to zero.

One more thing.  The documentation placement of this is pretty bad.  It is
only located in the section of the RPG Reference where the INZ keyword is
described and not in the data structure area.  Even if it was duplicate
information I think it would be warranted to put it in both places.

Aaron Bartell


-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Boldt [mailto:boldt@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 8:43 AM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Varying - Inz mandatory?


Bartell, Aaron L. (TC) wrote:

>>If you don't initialize a "varying" field, I think it's length is set to
> zero so the error makes since.
> Actually it is just blank space - x'40' until I Inz it, then it is x'F0'.
> 
> It would be nice if it would initialize to zero for you or have the
> compiler
> notify you that it was not initialized.  For example the Java compiler
> gives the following message for the following code:
> 
> int count;
> for (int i = 0; count > i; i++){
>    System.out.println("Hi");
> }
> 
> Compile error: variable count may not have been initialized.

This is consistent with behavior you've experienced before with 
uninitialized decimal numeric subfields. As already noted, by default, a 
data structure is initialized to all blanks, hex 40's. If you want 
subfields initialized to something other than hex 40's, code the INZ 
keyword either on the DS definition, or on the subfield definition.

Can we change the compiler to give an error message? Sure, it's doable. But 
when you get a successful compile, do you ever bother to look at the 
compile listing and check the severity 10 diags?

Cheers! Hans

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