Re: Does the CLEAR operation on an input-only file do anything?

[Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lets say I successfully chain and get Jack's record with a field NAME = 
'Jack'.   Then lets say next up is Judy, and we chain to the file and no 
record is found.  What is the value of the NAME field in my program?  I 
guess what I am asking is, because of this coding, does that suggest 
there is an unrecognized  downstream problem?

On 2/21/2019 2:52 PM, MichaelQuigley@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I've been working with what I would consider a bug in a vendor supplied
> program. They're processing a file conditioned on an optional field in a
> secondary file. The secondary file is specified as input-only, externally
> described, and keyed. For each record in the primary file, they do a chain
> to the secondary (input-only) file. Then the code is something like:
>
> ---------------
>
> chain (keys) secondary-record;
> if not %found;
>    clear secondary-record;
> endif;
>
> ---------------
>
> In the ILE RPG Reference Manual under Initialization Operations, it reads:
>
> "When these operation codes are applied to record formats, only fields
> which are output are affected (if factor 2 is blank) or all fields (if
> factor 2 is *ALL)."
>
> Also in the manual under "Clearing Record Formats" and the CLEAR operation
> code:
>
> if *ALL is not specified, only those fields with a usage of output or both
> are affected. All field-conditioning indicators of the record format are
> affected by the operation.
>
> So am I correct in getting back to the vendor and telling them they aren't
> coding the CLEAR incorrectly? i.e., It should be coded:
>
>     clear *all secondary-record;
>
> Thanks,
> Michael Quigley
> Computer Services
> The Way International
> (419) 753-1222