RE: Max length of a VARYING field

From: Holden Tommy

Add a %indexsize BIF and you're home free...but somewhere there will
have to be a means to determine the index byte size...if not then there
will be issues when someone "assumes" (bad word) that there will always
only 2 bytes for the index..

I understand your point, Tommy, and I agree that the %indexsize BIF would be
a good idea. At the same time, you can't protect everybody from everything.
The only reason you need to know about the size of the prefix is if you're
relying on that size for something, and programmers who rely on the index
size ought to know about specifying it using the VARYING clause.

Note that I'm not trying to take away the ability to explicitly specify the
index size. I'm just trying to make it so that the people who don't need to
know about the prefix still don't need to know about it. Heck, I'd guess
that there are plenty of people using VARYING today who don't know or care
about the size or location of the prefix (or that one even exists). I'm
sure they'd like to continue using the keyword without having to tell the
compiler what size to use!

In fact, who do you think use the keyword more? People who need to know the
size of the prefix field, or people who don't?

Joe