Re: Restructuring program to cope with modern database layouts

On Mon, May 19, 2025 at 7:35 AM cesco via RPG400-L
<rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But, at the end of the day, you need to store the thing somewhere, print somewhere etc. (despite the "infinite string" illusion of some languages).

Yes, but if you're not bound by the fixed-byte-size storage model
imposed by physical files, the "illusion" can be much more easily
preserved. If you're working exclusively with stream files, for
example, it's somewhere between trivial and automatic to just use more
bytes as needed, and always present the programmer or user the full
number of characters they expected and asked for.

Because Db2 for i tables are ultimately PFs, I am not surprised that
you get a fixed number of bytes. But other database systems might not
have the same constraints, and thus might choose to implement their
character fields differently, such that the number of characters
declared is always honored.

John Y.