The STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function returns the length of valid data excluding any trailing spaces included in an argument. Because the STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function returns the number of character positions, this function is useful for checking for numeric truncation or for determining significant data in an alphanumeric field for use with reference modification.
The STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function is unique to Win32, Winx64, Solaris, Linux, LinuxIPF, Linux64 and .NET.
000010 @OPTIONS MAIN 000020*---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000030* The STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function returns the valid data length in a 000035* data item. 000040*---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000050 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 000060 PROGRAM-ID. SAMPLE. 000070 DATA DIVISION. 000080 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 000090 01 IN-DATA PIC X(80). 000100 01 DATA-LEN PIC 9(4) BINARY. 000110 01 BUFFER PIC X(40) VALUE ALL "*". 000120** 000130 PROCEDURE DIVISION. 000140 DISPLAY "Please input a character string. >> " WITH NO ADVANCING. 000150 ACCEPT IN-DATA FROM CONSOLE. 000160*---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000170* If the argument is a national data item, the returned value of the 000180* STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function is number of characters. If the argument 000190* is an alphanumeric data item, the value returned is the number of 000200* bytes. Because the STORED-CHAR-LENGTH function is a numeric function, 000202* it can be coded only in an arithmetic expression. 000203* That is why the COMPUTE statement and not the MOVE statement is used 000204* below. 000210*---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000220 COMPUTE DATA-LEN = FUNCTION STORED-CHAR-LENGTH (IN-DATA). 000230*---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000240 IF DATA-LEN > FUNCTION LENGTH(BUFFER) THEN 000250 DISPLAY "The input data length has exceeded the buffer length." 000260 ELSE 000270 MOVE IN-DATA(1:DATA-LEN) TO BUFFER(1:DATA-LEN) 000280 DISPLAY "BUFFER = " BUFFER 000290 END-IF. 000300 END PROGRAM SAMPLE.
