Re: AW: VARLEN field read into LIKEREC DS

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

HauserSSS wrote:
> 
> Hi Barbara,
> 
> >>Within your program, a VARYING field has a fixed storage size (the maximum
> length of
> >>the data plus two bytes).  If you do %SIZE on the field, you will always
> >>get the same result no matter what the current length is.
> 
> Does this mean, that in RPG always the maximum length of the database field
> will be reserved,
> even if the database field is defined with VARLEN(xx) or ALLOCATE in SQL?
> 

Yes, that's correct.  The VARLEN value is only used by the actual
database to control how much of the data is stored with the record and
how much is stored in some overflow area.

This is similar to date fields.  In the actual database, date fields are
stored as 4-byte integers (at least, I think that's the case).  In the
I/O buffers, and in your program, the date fields are character-type
values of 6-10 bytes.