LINC Programming Reference Manual - Public Support Login - Unisys

ATTACH (ATT) and ATTACH&SPACE (ATS)
ATTACH (ATT) and ATTACH&SPACE (ATS)
The ATTACH; command appends the first data item to the second data item after the last
non-space character, and then stores the result in the second data item. Embedded blanks
in either data item are retained.
When the ATTACH&SPACE; command is used, a space is inserted between the two data
values when they are joined. However, if the second item has the same value as
GLB.SPACES, the result is the first data item (with no leading spaces, unless the first data
item contained leading spaces).
Truncation of Data
With the ATTACH; and ATTACH&SPACE; commands, the System Data item GLB.LENGTH
is set to the untruncated length of the result, ignoring trailing spaces.
The second data item must have a length that is large enough to contain the resulting data,
otherwise truncation will occur. If truncation occurs, the truncated data is returned in the
destination data item, GLB.LENGTH is set to the untruncated length, and no error message
is given.
For UNIX and MCP based LINC Systems, the maximum length of an item created with the
ATTACH; and ATTACH&SPACE; commands is 2000 characters. (This is equivalent to 1000
Kanji (EDIT; K) characters.)
On OS 2200 based LINC Systems, the maximum length of the item you are joining (the first
data item) is 2000 characters. If you attempt to join a longer item, its value is truncated to
2000 characters before being joined. The second data item and the result may be any length.
If you move a mixed alphanumeric and Hankaku-Katakana value into an EDIT; W data
item, the value is moved character by character, and is truncated to the length of the
data item. However, if you move a mixed alphanumeric and Hankaku-Katakana value into
an EDIT; A data item, the value is moved byte by byte and is truncated to the length of the
data item. If the truncation occurs after the first byte of a double-byte Hankaku-Katakana
character, this will result in an invalid character.
Notes:
$ EDIT; W data items are not implemented in LDA.
$ For an MCP based LINC System, when numeric data items containing separators
are used with ATTACH; or ATTACH&SPACE; commands, the effective length of the
data item will include separators. For example, a numeric data item with attributes
LE; 5 SP; (,) will have an effective length of 6, with an included leading zero.
For LDA there is no upper limit on the size of the item created.
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