Re: VARCHAR as procedure return value and implicit casting?

Hi Wynn,

I think, that the behavior is of course documented.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.3?topic=codes-eval-evaluate-expression#zzeval

A "=" assignment is implicitly an EVAL operation.

So when assigning a varchar value to a char variable, EVAL does indeed an implicit typecast, assigns the value left justified and pads it with spaces on the right. It does also typecast the other way around.

That the varchar "value" is the return value of a procedure, doesn't matter - a "right hand value" is a value - no matter where it comes from.

HTH
Daniel

Am 20.07.2023 um 15:06 schrieb Osborne, Wynn <Wynn.Osborne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Hi all,

Does RPG implicitly cast a varchar return value (from a procedure) to char when the receiver variable is char?

Sample random code (2 lines):

dcl-s CharacterVariable char(50) inz(' '); //character date type
CharacterVariable = EmailAddress ( 'Bob Saget' ); //EmailAddress has return value defined as varchar(50).

Although this appears to work for some of my teammates I was told by Bruce Vining (remember Bruce??) that if IBM does not explicitly document a behavior then one should never assume it to be true "just because it works for you." (paraphrasing Bruce).
I believe his exact words were, "Bad things can happen." :)

I was thinking of instructing my team to make this practice verboten, but I thought I'd ask the list first.

Unless I'm blind I could find no text in the RPG Reference to address this, much less come close to implying it.

Regards,


[cid:image001.png@01D9BAE8.13979320]
Wynn Osborne
Senior IBM i Programmer-Analyst,Database Administrator
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