Utilities › CA JARS File Utility Commands Coding Conventions › Data Specification Rules

Data Specification Rules

The File Utility determines the length of the objective data field from the immediate data entered on a FIND or CHANGE command.

For character data fields, the length assumed is the exact number of characters entered. Padding must be entered as part of the data field itself if it is part of the FIND or CHANGE criteria. The maximum length for character data fields is 32.

For hex data fields, the length assumed is the number of characters entered divided by two (2), except for odd length entries. For example, if you enter a one-byte X'A' as a data field, the File Utility converts this to a one-byte value containing X'0A'. The maximum number of characters that can be entered as hex input is 32, which when converted, is a 16-byte hex field. If an odd number of characters is entered, the File Utility treats them as a one-byte entry. For example, if you enter X'123', it is converted to X'0123' for processing and its length is assumed to be '2'.

For packed data fields, the length assumed is the number of characters entered divided by two (2) + one (1). For example, if you enter a three-byte P'123' as a data field, the File Utility converts this to a two-byte value containing P'123C'. The maximum number of characters that can be entered as packed input is 15, as the CA JARS File Utility supports up to a PL8 data field, and 15 digits is the maximum number (including a sign byte) that fits in a PL8 field.

The only other command that accepts immediate data fields is the HEADER command. This command allows you up to 70 bytes of character data to be displayed on output.

Note: The File Utility does not accept embedded apostrophes in data fields because the it uses apostrophes as delimiters. If specified, it truncates the data when an apostrophe is found, and reports trailing data as an error.