Null field behaviour observation in 8.7.x

Products

• CA 2E

Issue/Introduction

On using the 2E 8.7 environment, noticing that null fields are behaving in a way that raises concerns for the given null fields being dropped.  Behaviour observed in 8.7 is not what was experienced in prior 7.x releases

Environment

Release:  8.7 and above
CA 2E

Cause

In 2004, post 2E r8.1, it was identified that in previous releases, returned null output parameters from called functions were incorrectly being generated as moves into result fields. This was resolved by making the necessary changes to prevent the generation of null output parameters on Factor 1 of PARM opcode.

Resolution

Prior to the changes, the returned null parameters from called external functions were incorrectly being generated as moves into local fields, e.g.:

C                            CALL 'CCC4XFR'              90           
C                            PARM *BLANK    W0RTN   7                 
C                            PARM           PBRC                      
C           YL0009    PARM *BLANK    WQ0001  1                 
C           YN0001    PARM *BLANK    WQ0002 25                 

After the changes, it was ensured that null output parameters aren't generated and copied to real fields. The equivalent generation is as follows:

C                            CALL 'CCC4XFR'              90
C                            PARM *BLANK    W0RTN   7      
C                            PARM           PBRC           
C           YL0009    PARM *BLANK    WQ0001  1      
C                           PARM *BLANK    WQ0002 25      

This matches the generation occurring and is working as expected.

We do not foresee any issues due to this, at r8.7, including the potential of a null field being dropped.