PI53306: REGRESSION IN COMPARISONS OF 0-LENGTH STRING LITERALS TO NUM FIELDS.

Rational Business Developer Fix Pack 1 (9.1.1.1) for 9.1.1
Rational Business Developer 9.5.1
Rational Business Developer Fix Pack 2 (9.0.1.2) for 9.0.1

APAR status

• Closed as program error.

Error description

• A regression is observed from 8012 behavior in comparisons of
  0-length String literals to Num fields. The correct logic should
  be doing a character comparison instead of calling the numeric
  conversion routine to get the value.
  

Local fix

Problem summary

• ****************************************************************
  * USERS AFFECTED:                                              *
  * Users that compare NUM fields against the 0-length literal   *
  * "" when using textLiteralDefaultIsString=NO.                 *
  ****************************************************************
  * PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:                                         *
  * A comparison of a NUM field against a 0-length literal can   *
  * produce improper results. The field should be byte compared  *
  * in this case. This is a regression due to a previous APAR    *
  * that fixed 0-length string concatenations used in a binary   *
  * expression. This previous fix should not have touched the    *
  * logic for IF/WHILE statements, when the expression was a     *
  * comparison operator. Because of this regression, a callout   *
  * would be done to EZEPRC-NUMVALC to obtain the value of the   *
  * 0-length string and would return an exception (unless the    *
  * build option blanksAsZero was set to yes).                   *
  ****************************************************************
  * RECOMMENDATION:                                              *
  ****************************************************************
  

Problem conclusion

• The generator logic has been updated to handle both the problems
  reported. The original apar and this regression. The logic now
  checks for a binary expression that is a comparison and if so,
  will not change the 0-length string to type string, but instead
  use the char(1) value instead. This prevents the use of the
  numvalc routine and the possible exception.
  

Temporary fix

Comments

APAR Information

• APAR is sysrouted FROM one or more of the following:

• APAR is sysrouted TO one or more of the following:

Fix information

• Fixed component name

  RATL BUS DEV

• Fixed component ID

  5724S5000

Applicable component levels

• R901 PSY

     UP

• R911 PSY

     UP

• R950 PSY

     UP