Re: RPG II Question -- RPG400-L

Willie,

I hear what you're saying, but such is not the case. Position 1 (record status) is 'A' (active) for every record. Whereas WRCONS ranges from A-Z and 0-9. In fact, the only reason I even pulled the program up is because we need more than 36 codes so I'm expanding the code field wherever it's used (which is a lot of places since the original designer did not normalize the database).

* Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
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Willie J. Moore wrote:

Could the recid (postion 1) and wrcons have the same data in them? This way it would look like the chain
was working for the validation of a code. How is the file defined internally? Does the fields match up?
William...

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jerry Adams
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:39 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: RPG II Question

I re-compiled the program (an RPG36 source type) with 'IC' as the file type and the same erroneous key starting position. Put the program under debug (ISDB), and it still worked flawlessly. By that, I mean it performed as I would have expected if the starting position had been correct in the source code.

* Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
voice
615.995.7024
fax
615.995.1201
email
jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Jerry Adams wrote:

Peter,

The non-contiguous keys (aka Alternate Index) used (on the S/36) EXTK as the key starting position. But this table is a physical with a single key field.
It may have something to do with it being defined as full procedural (IF) rather than the old fashioned chain (IC) designation. The RPG II manual did not make any special note of this. Just that the "key starting position" was a required entry for an IF file.

* Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
voice
615.995.7024
fax
615.995.1201
email
jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Peter Dow (ML) wrote:

Hi Jerry,

Keeping in mind that my grey cells are leaking out and making my hair grey, but I have this recollection that when IBM started allowing non-contiguous key fields, the key location in RPG II changed to just 1, i.e. pretty much unused. I always thought of it as the position of the key in the index, not in the physical file, and in the index entry, the key would always start in pos.1.

hth,
*Peter Dow* /
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050
pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> /

Jerry Adams wrote:

I really don't expect an answer. In fact most people will probably just delete this when they see the subject line. But this is puzzling the heck out of me.

I went in to an RPG II program (old package) to do some simple maintenance changes. I noticed that one of the files was defined as:

FFilenameIPEAFBlenRlenLK1AIOvKlocEDevice+
FLISTCONSIF 27 1AI 1 DISK Well, the key length is '1' but the key actually starts in position '2' of the record. The purpose of the file is to validate a code entered on a panel:

C WRCONS CHAINLISTCONS 54
C 54 SETON 99
C 54 *ZEROS ADD 23 $ C 54 GOTO X2A The first position of LISTCONS is a status byte. Currently every record has an 'A' in position 1. The program has been successfully validating these codes for years. How is that possible? I even put the program under debug (ISDB) and verified the codes entered (WRCONS) and in the file (ABCONS) are the same after the chain, and that indicator 54 is turned *Off.

It has been awhile since I programmed on a S/36, but I'm pretty sure that, first, when the program started up it would give me a file mismatch error. Is the i5 really smart enough to say, "Well, he botched that. Let's just use what is really in the file."?

Thanks.