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[Allenantony]

Dear all,

I would like to hear your suggestions on how to dynamically allocate the size of a field in an output record.

Scenario:-

I have a Header Record which has a field named TOTAL-COUNT (which is allocated as PIC ZZZZZZZ9 ). This field needs to be populated with the total count of Detail-Records. I am able to get the count and update the Header record. But my problem happens here... Say for example, the count is 53834. Because of my allocation I am populating a value as XXX53834 where 'X' stands for spaces. Could you please help me to find an alternate way of doing this so that only 53834 is populated into the TOTAL-COUNT field. If you could explain me the same with an example that will be really helpful as I am doing his for the first time. My main concern is how to allocate TOTAL-COUNT with the appropriate PIC value.

Thanks for your helps in advance.

Regards,

Allen

[kolusu]

Allenantony,

You simply want to left justify? use Unstring verb and remove the leading space and move the value to a character fields before you print the header line
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[Allenantony]

Hi Kolusu,

Thanks for your reply.

My concern is not with related to justification of the value. I am facing difficulty in dynamically allocating the size vale for the TOTA-COUNT variable. Because the length/size of this value can vary on each run and based on the size of the count I need to allocate a field in the output record, that can hold this retrieved value.

Regards,

Allen

[kolusu]

Allenantony,

You dont have to dynamically allocate the size of the header variable. just define it with max and use left justify it using the following code.

[Allenantony]

Hi Kolusu,

But in my case there are few more fields that will immediately follow the Count Value. Say for example, H0310200812345|BOEING|LOCKHEED where 12345 is the Count Value.

So I dont think I can assign a value,
01 WS-OUTPUT PIC X(08) as given in your example in order to store the Count. Because this will allocate a variable of size 8 and after justification the succeeding values after the Count Value are going to start after the 8th position. Say, H0310200812345 |BOEING|LOCKHEED. But my requirement is that the succeeding values (after the Count value) should start immediately after irrespective of the spaces.

Thanks,

Allen

[Nic Clouston]

So how does the next program know where one field ends and the next starts?

Anyway, just have one large output field and concatenate your data together before assigning it.
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