Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
Last update: 30 April 2004
Initialize internal tables
Question
Is the following Natural code valid? If not, why not? If so, under what conditions, and what, if any, are the results of execution?
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ASSIGN #A = '456' - '123'
ASSIGN #B = 'DEF' - 'ABC'
Does #A contain '333'? What about #B? Solution
Assuming both #A and #B are of format/length A6,
#A contains '456123' and
#B contains 'DEFABC'.
Initialize internal tables
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1 #MONTHS
2 #MTH(A3/12) INIT<'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr',
'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug',
'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec'>
2 #DAYS(N2/12) INIT<30, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30,
31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31>
It's easier to see the relationship of "columns" to "rows" like this:
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1 #MONTHS(A5/12) INIT<'Jan' - '30',
'Feb' - '28',
'Mar' - '31',
'Apr' - '30',
...
'Dec' - '31'>
1 REDEFINE #MONTHS
2 #ELEMENT(12)
3 #MTH(A3)
3 #DAYS(N2)
Initialization of a super descriptor
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1 #SUPER(A5)
1 REDEFINE #SUPER
2 #STATE(A2)
2 #COUNTY(P3)
...
ASSIGN #STATE = 'CA'
ASSIGN #COUNTY = 345 /* LA
READ view BY ST-CTY FROM #SUPER
becomes
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1 #SUPER-DEF
2 #STATE(A2) INIT<'CA'>
2 #COUNTY(P3) INIT<345> /* LA
1 REDEFINE #SUPER-DEF
2 #SUPER(A5)
...
READ view BY ST-CTY FROM #SUPER
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