Help with VARCHAR needed

Tue, 25 Mar 2003 14:35:11 -0000

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I believe that VARCHAR only exists because Oracle has a VARCHAR
datatype,  I don't think there is any valid use for it as PowerHouse
treats all string as fixed lengths, so VARCHAR*2000 will be the same as
CHAR*2000.

If you are outputting to Excel, then the fixed column format is probably
fine. Its one of the formats that excel is OK with importing.  If you
start doing CSV files or anything else fancy like that then you will
have to start converting numbers to characters, etc.  The only drawback
is that if you use the REPORT statement to output strings then the
maximum page witdh is 255. Generally I would uses a SUBFILE as the
output format, you would then need to adjust the format , and convert
everything to s character string. If you use a subfile in this way then
you probably should use a CSV format, and terminate each record with a
<CR><LF>, if you pack your strings to remove excess space then it
doesn't matter about having trailing spaces in the subfile records -
providing you end each set of data with <CR><LF>.

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-----Original Message-----
From: powerh-l-admin@cube.swau.edu [mailto:powerh-l-admin@cube.swau.edu]
On Behalf Of Leonard_Berkowitz@harvardpilgrim.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 1:34 PM
To: Chris Sharman
Cc: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu; powerh-l-admin@cube.swau.edu
Subject: Re: Help with VARCHAR needed

Chris,

Thanks for your note.

Yes, it is QUIZ.

Since this output is destined for an Excel spreadsheet, the recipient
will have to format the columns on the other end. For now, I am
reporting the data on my terminal just to validate the logic, so the
width that I selected is somewhat inconvenient.

I was beginning to read the same conclusion about the lack of advantage
to VARCHAR, but I figured there must be some purpose.

Leonard
--
Leonard S. Berkowitz
Perot Health Care Systems
(Harvard Pilgrim Health Care account)
voice: 617-509-1212
fax: 617-509-1955
pager: 781-226-2431

                      Chris Sharman

                      <chris.sharman@ccag        To:
powerh-l@lists.swau.edu

                      roup.co.uk>                cc:

                      Sent by:                   Subject:  Re: Help with
VARCHAR needed                                                  
                      powerh-l-admin@cube

                      .swau.edu

                      03/25/2003 03:52 AM

leonard_berkowitz@harvardpilgrim.org wrote:
> HPe3000; Powerhouse 8.19C.
>
> I have not used VARCHAR previously. I somehow believed that it was not

> available in my environment.
>
> To parse a 256-byte field that has variable-length sub-fields within 
> it,
I
> am using VARCHAR. It seems-- in the DEFINE --  that I have to set 
> VARCHAR
*
> N or SIZE M to be the maximum expected length of the sub-field. I 
> chose SIZE 20. When I report the DEFINEd items, they come out fixed 
> width of
20.
>
> So, how do I take advantage of the variable-length?

Is this Quiz ?
If you want to print something else immediately next to your varchar, I
guess you need another define. Quiz pads everything to fixed width
columns, except the last column. If you don't want that padding, you
have to construct the line yourself in a define, then report the defined
item. I've done that to take excess space out of html reports etc.

I've never found that varchar does anything different to truncate(char)
I haven't used it much. I have a vague recollection that it gets passed
strangely (in Quick) or something.

Chris

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