RE: Making sense of 4-byte binary fields

["Jon Paris" <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >> I may be going against the grain here, but if the documentation says
4-byte binary I just specify 4-byte binary in my code, as shown below, which
works just fine, and the way we always used to define binary fields prior to
RPGIV.

Yes you are <grin>

First of all you are using From/To notation - which I hate - I gave that up
the day RPG IV became available.

Second, if you use length only notation, then you must specify 9B to achieve
the same thing.  4B defines a two byte binary - not a four byte.

There are many reasons to avoid the B data type.  First of all it is
horribly inefficient since every time you "touch" the value in the field it
is converted to/from packed during the operation.  Secondly it cannot
encompass the full 10 digit capacity of a four byte integer (only 9 digits).

Yes we used it in RPG III - but only because we didn't have anything better.
I was also forced to use IFEQ, IFGT etc. then, but I wouldn't use them
today - there are better alternatives.

Jon Paris
Partner400
www.Partner400.com