Re: Varying Length fields, and LikeRec

Tony Carolla wrote:
> 
> I am writing to a file, and one of the fields is a 150 Alpha VARLEN
> field.  This file will contain a large number of history records, and
> I am doing this to conserve space:
> ...
> In debug, I see that the DS has the correct length set (52) using %Len
> to test the length.  But when I write, the field in the DB file
> contains all 150 characters, with trailing spaces added.  Is there a
> trick to making the WRITE op recognize the DS variable length, that
> the compiler created for me, based on the file structure, or do I have
> to eval %Trim from the DS to the actual file buffer fields?
> 

How are you determining the actual data in the file?  If you're using
DSPPFM, the position of the other fields in the record will be fixed, so
DSPPFM has to show something in those unused bytes.  Try doing F10 F11
to see the hex value of the record, so you can see the 2-byte length
part of the varying field.

For this file:
A          R REC                                
A            FLD1          10A                  
A            FLD2          10A         VARLEN   
A            FLD3          10A                  

My record has values FLd1='aaaaaaaaaa', FLD2='bbb', and
FLd3='cccccccccc'.

DSPPFM and it shows this:
        aaaaaaaaaabbb       cccccccccc

With F10 then F11, it shows this.  The xx marks the 2 length bytes for
FLD2 (value x'0003' = 3).
                  xx
        aaaaaaaaaabbb       cccccccccc
        88888888880088844444448888888888
        11111111110322200000003333333333