Error 'EZTC0205E $ must be a numeric field' on Alphanumeric 'MOVE'

Products

• Easytrieve Report Generator
• PAN/SQL
• Easytrieve Report Generator for Common Services

Issue/Introduction

Why getting the below errors on moving a literal into an Alphanumeric field?
...
           71    MOVE ',' TO A-FIELD1 A-FIELD2 A-FIELD3
EZTC0205E >>>                         $ must be a numeric field           
EZTC0100E >>>                                  $ end of statement expected  

 

Environment

Release : 11.6

Component : CA EASYTRIEVE REPORT GEN

Resolution

The EZTC0205E error occurs, because when using MOVE that way in Easytrieve, it expects a length at the location of A-FIELD2.
From https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-mainframe-software/devops/ca-easytrieve-report-generator/11-6/language-reference/statements/move-statement.html
...

...
It has been highlighted what the MOVE is doing, resp. expecting in this case.

There is an example on the same page, which is somewhat misleading (MOVE ZEROS TO COUNTER-1 COUNTER-2).
The thing is, that there is an exception - for example, the following works fine:
MOVE SPACES TO A-FIELD1 A-FIELD2 A-FIELD3
if all field are alpha-numeric
and
MOVE ZEROS TO N-FIELD1 N-FIELD2 N-FIELD3
if all field are numeric.
Only these two reserved words, SPACES and ZEROS, can be used in order to move spaces or zeros to multiple fields at once at one single MOVE statement.