RE: Packed Numeric stored in Char field

Thanks guys... I'll try the pointer approach.

Jon - the previous method was from early 2000's and was not my code... legacy ERP, so I can't change the data definition either.

But I do have my DS defined externally...
dcl-ds myRecDS extname('SA991A');
end-ds;

I think the pointer is more "readable" to someone else looking at the code.

Thanks again!

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Jon Paris
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2024 11:36 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries) <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Packed Numeric stored in Char field

Shows how long it has been since I used from/to - couldn't work out how 8 decimals fitted into a 5 digit field and that the 8 must be a typo! Another good reason to never use from/to!

In my DS example simply change the def of packed fields to packed(9:8) and all is well.


Jon P.

On Mar 27, 2024, at 11:26 AM, Daniel Gross <daniel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Greg,

Am 27.03.2024 um 16:03 schrieb Greg Wilburn <gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

The table I'm reading contains a character field IDFL03 that contains a packed decimal value.

The previous extraction method (reading the file with RPG) simply defined a DS "overlay"
D ds
D idfl03 1 5a stored here in sa326
D idpml 1 5p 8 payment multiplier

How about using a pointer?

dcl-s packedField packed(9:8) based(pointerCharField); ...
pointerCharField = %addr(idfl03);
...
// now use packedField

Another idea is using SQLs built in INTERPRET function?

SELECT INTERPRET(idfl03 AS DECIMAL(9, 8) FROM ...

This should also work.

Of course the best solution would be converting this column to a numeric value.

HTH
Daniel

P.S.: I'm on holidays right now - so no chance to check my ideas ...
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