Example: Retrieve data area ORDINFO

This is an example of using a data area to track the status of an order file.

Assume that you are using a data area named ORDINFO to track the status of an order file. This data area is designed so that:

Position 1 contains an O (open), a P (processing), or a C (complete).
Position 2 contains an I (in-stock) or an O (out-of-stock).
Positions 3 through 5 contain the initials of the order clerk.

You would declare these fields in your procedure as follows:

DCL VAR(&ORDSTAT) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1)
DCL VAR(&STOCKC) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1)
DCL VAR(&CLERK) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(3)

To retrieve the order status into &ORDSTAT, you would enter the following:

RTVDTAARA DTAARA(ORDINFO (1  1))  RTNVAR(&ORDSTAT)

To retrieve the stock condition into &STOCK, you would enter the following:

RTVDTAARA DTAARA(ORDINFO (2  1)) RTNVAR(&STOCKC)

To retrieve the clerk's initials into &CLERK, you would enter the following:

RTVDTAARA DTAARA(ORDINFO (3  3)) RTNVAR(&CLERK)

Each use of the RTVDTAARA command requires the data area to be accessed. If you are retrieving many subfields, it is more efficient to retrieve the entire data area into a variable, then use the substring built-in function to extract the subfields.