Natural 4 EnhancementsModule 2Variables.pptVIP

Natural 4 Enhancements Module 2Variables Presented by: James Bando Advisory Systems Engineer Software AG, Inc. Size of Variables Alphanumeric variable size limit changed from 253 bytes to 1 GB (2**30)1 #ALPHA (A1073741824) Binary variable size limit changed from 126 bytes to 1 GB (2*30)1 #BINARY (B1073741824) Unicode variables limit is 2**29 characters1 #UNICODE (U536870912) Size of Data Elements Size of single data element (array or indexed group) has been increased from 32 KB to 1 GB Array Sizes Maximum number of occurrences (2**30) Dynamic Variables Dynamic variables are defined without a length Alphanumeric: 1 #FULL-NAME (A) DYNAMIC Binary: 1 #PICTURE (B) DYNAMIC Unicode: 1 #NATIVE-NAME (U) DYNAMIC Lengths of a dynamic variables change based on the values assigned to them Many statements and APIs use dynamic variables Example: Used in REQUEST DOCUMENT statement for received page since the page size is never known until run-time. (NAT414) Natural RPC stubs that contain dynamic variables in their PDAs can be generated Define in GLOBAL, LOCAL, PARAMETER, INDEPENDENT, CONTEXT, OBJECT data areas Dynamic Variables Can be initialized1 #HOMETOWN (A) DYNAMIC INIT YORKTOWN Can be named constants 1 #CORP-NAME (A) DYNAMIC CONST ACME, INC. Cannot be redefined Cannot be part of a redefinition *LENGTH(dyn-var) returns length Dynamic Variables Can be used with SUBSTRING() Accessing as source beyond *LENGTH results in a run-time error IF *LENGTH(#DYNA) = 1 AND *LENGTH(#DYNB) =3 IF SUBSTRING(#DYNA,1,1) = X MOVE SUBSTRING(#DYNA,1,1) TO SUBSTRING(#DYNB,3,1) Dynamic Variables Can be used with SUBSTRING() Accessing as target beyond *LENGTH results in longer variable Can only specify starting position one greater than current *LENGTH() Faster than using COMPRESS statement Dynamic Variables Dynamic Variables Example: Use a dynamic variable to determine the last non-blank character in a variable Traditional Using a dynamic variable Dy