Length and offset of data items

Display of data item length and offset is subject to several restrictions and limitations.

PL/I data types supported

The length and offset can be calculated for the following types of PL/I data elements: BINARY, BIT, CHARACTER, COMPLEX, DECIMAL, DIMENSION, FIXED, FLOAT, GRAPHIC, HANDLE, NONVARYING, PICTURE, POINTER, REAL, SIGNED, UNSIGNED, UNION, VARYING, VARYING4, VERYINGZ, WIDECHAR, WIDEPIC.

Type of information displayed

The following information can be displayed in the Length and Offset columns of the Data Elements view.
Table 1. Information in the Length and Offset columns of the Data Elements view
Content Explanation
A non-negative integer The Length or Offset of the data item measured in 1-byte increments. The offset origins start at 1, unlike with other languages in which offsets might start at 0.
Blank or empty
  • The table item is not a data item, but some other string, such as a program label or paragraph name.
  • The language of the source is not supported by the table view.
Ellipsis (...)
  • The source file contains more than one program and the data item is located within the program unit that is not the first program in the source.
  • The data item has no relevant data information available to display, such as when the data item is FILLER or an unnamed item.
  • When the data item is LEVEL 88, which has no relevant data information available to display.
*** The following data element types are out of scope because they are created by dynamic allocation. Their length and offsets return a 0 value in the API.
  • Controlled and based variables
  • TYPE, LIKE, and UNALIGNED attributes
  • AREA variable