Re: [spam] Re: Why you shouldn't be afraid to use VARCHAR in RPGLE

Hi Brian,

Marco is absolutely right - of course I-specs are compiled AFTER D-specs - so if the %LEN in a D-spec is referencing an I-spec, it could not work.

I finally had the time to try all this on PUB400 - so this will work:

dcl-f myFile disk usage(*input); // the original file
dcl-ds myType likerec(myFileR) template; // a template from the record format
dcl-s vc varchar(%len(myType.field)) inz; // a field length derieved from the template

Of course you can also create the template directly with EXTNAME(...).

The template data structure doesn't use any Space in your program - it only defines a "type" that can be referenced to define other fields or data structures.

Sorry for causing some irritation - in fact I haven't thought about the compile sequence of the specifications. Our team also tends to have a "typeTableName" data structure template for nearly every database table, and we use those intensively.

HTH
Daniel

Am 06.12.2025 um 16:27 schrieb Brian Parkins <goodprophet.bp@xxxxxxxxx>:
You might like to test it your examples, Daniel. I cannot get them to compile unless I code:

dcl-c #LEN Const(200);
dcl-s w_address1 varchar(#LEN) inz;

- which doesn't satisfy Doug's request. (The wording in the manual is misleading.)

Brian.

On 06/12/2025 03:12, Daniel Gross wrote:

AFAIK - I might have to test it - this should be possible:

dcl-s w_address1 varchar(%len(phaddress1)) inz;

At least it should be possible to define a constant and use this to define your varchar variable:

dcl-c #LEN %len(phaddress1);
dcl-s w_address1 varchar(#LEN) inz;

As long as the expression value is resolvable at compile time. But I'm pretty sure, that also the first form should work.

-> https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=length-len-used-its-value

And you can also use %LEN to get the maximum size of a VARCHAR variable, simply use:

%len(varchar_variable:*max)

-> https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.6.0?topic=lgsl-len-used-get-maximum-length-varying-length-expressions

But when %LEN is used in definition statement, it always returns the maximum length of variable length fields like VARCHAR. So it should also work the other way around:

dcl-s x_address1 char(%len(w_address1)) inz;

HTH
Daniel

Am 06.12.2025 um 03:41 schrieb Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Not quite, Charles. $SIZE returns the storage required to hold the field - it's capacity will be 2 or 4 less than that due to the storage used by the length.
So:
Dcl-S myVarLen Varchar(200) Inz; // %Len = 0, %Size = 202 bytes.
Jon Paris
Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Dec 5, 2025, at 6:08 PM, Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
LIKE should pick up the both the type and size...
dcl-s w_address1 like(phaddress1);
note: %len() on a varchar is always the length of the current value. The
max size is retrieved using %size().
HTH,
Charles

On Fri, Dec 5, 2025 at 3:28 PM DEnglander--- via RPG400-L <
rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does anyone know how to do something like this:
I would like to define a %TRIMmed disk field that is CHAR(200)
[PHADDRESS1] as a VARCHAR and eliminate the %TRIMs.
So as not to hardcode the size of the VARCHAR, can I define it as VARCHAR
but based on the length of the CHAR(200) field? Something like:
dcl-s w_address1 varchar(%len(phaddress1));
Can that be done?
Thank you,
Doug
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