Re: Clear entire field vs substring

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This does not match my experience.  My experience is that the data at 
the end of the string is not cleared when the string is made shorter -- 
but is cleared when the string is made larger.

Let's try it:

     D String          s             50a   varying
     D p_View          s               *
     D View            s             50a   based(p_View)

      /free
         String = 'Hello World';
         %len(string) = 5;
         p_View = %addr(String:*data);

         dsply String;
         dsply View;

         *inlr = *on;


CALL PGM(LEN_TEST)

DSPLY  Hello
DSPLY  Hello World


As you can see, even though I shortened string to len=5, the word 
'World' is still in memory.

-SK


On 5/21/2012 4:22 PM, Jon Paris wrote:
> I think Chuck is wrong about the varying in that I'm fairly certain
> that it actually places blanks in the back end of the field even
> though (because of the length) it doesn't need to. It certainly pads
> when you use %Len to increase the field length. I seem to recall a
> conversation with Barbara where she told me that they had decided
> that setting the back end of a varying to blanks was probably a waste
> of time but by then couldn't change the behaviour because undoubtedly
> someone had decided it was a "feature" by then.