Re: *varying vs varchar

*VARCHAR simply tells the compiler to allow you to pass a field with a length shorter than defined in the PR/PI.

The combination of CONST and *VARCHAR is not a good one. In fact I can't think of a valid use case. No idea why that would have ever been coded.

More to the point, it is unnecessary as CONST alone will give you better results in this case as it will result in a six character field containing '123 ' in the called routine.

Normally if using *VARCHAR you either pass the actual parm length or use operational descriptors to determine how much of the data in the field is valid.

Whether VARCHAR is a better choice depends on what you are going to do with the data in the called procedure. If you are going to (say) concatenate it with other fields and want to avoid %TRIM then it is a good choice. But if you were simply moving the parm to a fixed length 6 character field then it would be a bit pointless.


Jon P

On Apr 29, 2022, at 10:36 AM, Greg Wilburn <gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have an older procedure interface defined like this:

dcl-pr myProc;
myfield char(6) const options(*varchar);
myfield2 char(100) const options(*varchar);
end-pr;

If I call this procedure like this:

Callp myProc('123':'This is myfield2');

The value of myfield in the procedure is not just "123"...

What am I missing?
Should I change the Procedure Interface to be VARCHAR instead? And what are the ramifications of that?

I apologize for asking as I have a strange sense of déjà vu.

[Logo]<https://www.totalbizfulfillment.com/> Greg Wilburn
Director of IT
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