Re: Varying length subfield contains blanks instead of length 0 ?

On 5/5/2014 1:47 PM, Koester, Michael wrote:

I'm having trouble understanding why a subfield of a data structure does not have the length designation (it crashes when I test with "when %len(datastructure(x).subfield) = 0;" ).
I get the RNX0115 Length of varying length variable is out of range. It clearly is out of range, because the value of the subfield is set to all blanks, and the length bytes show x'4040'.

My question is why the subfield is initiated to all blanks, including the length bytes, instead of to all x'00', like any other respectable varying length field should have?

Because data structures are initialised to blanks.
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/iseries/v7r1m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Frzasd%2Fsc092508537.htm
The last sentence:

Note:
When the INZ parameter is not specified:

1) Static standalone fields and subfields of initialized data structures
are initialized to their RPG default initial values (for example, blanks
for character, 0 for numeric).

2) Subfields of uninitialized data structures (INZ not specified on the
definition specification for the data structure) are initialized to
blanks (regardless of their data type).

Looks like testing for an "empty" varying subfield will need to be "if datastucture(x).subfield = *blanks" instead of testing its length. Let me know if there's a better alternative.

I think the default of initialising a DS to blanks regardless of the
underlying data types ill suits my needs, so I always, always specify
INZ at the DS level.
--buck