Re: VARLEN field read into LIKEREC DS

[Barbara Morris <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony Carolla wrote:
> ...
> D M DS LikeRec(RCBI1 : *Input) Inz
> 
> I see that the DS is created with a VARYING alpha field, and a subsequent
> PDATE field.
> 
> My question is this: Can I set up a pointer to point at the M.PDATE field,
> and know that every record that I read from the format into the M data
> structure, it will point at the M.PDATE field? Or do the subsequent fields
> after the VARYING field shift based on the length of the VARYING field?
> 

You can count on M.PDATE staying in the same place.  Within your
program, a VARYING field has a fixed storage size (the maximum length of
the data plus two bytes).  If you do %SIZE on the field, you will always
get the same result no matter what the current length is.