Accumulator Variables

[Kurt Anderson <kurt.anderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is actually a co-worker's idea, but she asked me to email this out.

Quite often, for a report, we are accumulating fields (dollars or quantity generally).  The accumulator variable usually needs to be a step larger than the variable that's being accumulated.  So, wouldn't it be nice if we could do something like this:

D QtyA            S                   Like( FileA.UsageQty + 2)
D QtyB            S                   Like( FileA.UsageQty + 2,1)

Field		Size
FileA.UsageQty	 9,4
QtyA		11,4
QtyB		11,5
 
We are big proponents of using LIKE to define fields within programs, though quite often it's these accumulator variables that are the exception.

We're curious if anyone else would find benefit to something like this?  Or maybe there's an existing solution that doesn't involve hardcoding the definition?

Thanks,
Kurt Anderson
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
CustomCall Data Systems