Re: Opening externally-described files as program-described (again)

[Joep Beckeringh <joep@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James,

My experience with program-described files is that the key length in the F-spec 
is only used at compile time. At run time whatever you use as key is 'thrown at 
the database manager', which handles it. So you might use a data structure as 
key and at run time use the appropriate layout.

In your case, because the second key field has a fixed length, it might be 
interesting to try to switch the key fields. If you then use a 13-digit second 
key field in the key list, I suspect that at run time only the appropriate 
number of digits will be used.

Joep Beckeringh



James H H Lampert wrote:
> Suppose you have a file where you don't know the key length at compile
> time, but you do know it at run time. And further suppose you know at
> compile time that it will consist of two zoned decimal fields, with the
> first one either 9, 11, or 13 digits, and the second one always 5 digits.
>
> Anybody know how to handle that?
>
> --
> JHHL