Re: Alternatives to MOVEL - just curious

On 12/9/2013 11:31 AM, Vernon Hamberg wrote:

I'm looking at some code - the purpose is to put the 1st 4 digits of a
6-digit variable into a 4-digit numeric variable.

It is being done with the MOVEL opcode now.

I'm wondering about efficient alternative methods. One I can think of is
to use a data structure -

dcl-ds dsMoveL qualified;
num4 zoned(4);
num6 zoned(6) pos(1);
end-ds;

Anything simpler? Better performing?

As grotchy as it is, MOVEL at least hinted that the goal was to extract
some (or all) of one field.

If the case is that all rows containing NUM6 need to have the first 4
digits extracted, I favour the data structure. For an example, let's
say I was spinning through post-mortems of my SQL failures. SQLSTATE is
a 5 digit code, the first two of which are the class. 00 is normal, 01
is warning, etc. For nefarious reasons, I'm only interested in the
class, not the detail. Using a data structure makes it crystal clear to
me that the class is a subset of the whole.

I could use division or multiplication to extract the class but that
would be a side effect due to truncation as opposed to the primary
purpose of mathematical division. Decent names would hint at the intent
of division though.

--buck