^SIZE

Return the size of an expression

WSupported on Windows

USupported on Unix

VSupported on OpenVMS

NSupported in Synergy .NET

size = ^SIZE(expression)

or

xcall SIZE(expression, size)

Return value

size

The size of an expression. (i)

Arguments

expression

An expression whose size will be returned. (a or n)

Discussion

^SIZE returns the number of bytes in the data area referenced by the specified expression.

In Synergy .NET, ^SIZE can also return the size of a non-descriptor type or the length of a System.String field. In addition, it can be used to obtain the size of an unmanaged type (sbyte, byte, short, ushort, etc.), in bytes. For example, ^SIZE(int) returns 4.

^SIZE is especially useful in subroutines that handle arguments with variable lengths, because you usually need to know the length of an argument to control how its contents are processed. For example, ^SIZE would be helpful in a subroutine that parses an alpha argument to decode a command line. Because it’s evaluated at compile time, ^SIZE can be used on arguments referenced in the procedure division but not in the data division.

Subroutine arguments that have not been passed have a size of -1.

^SIZE of an array results in the size of one element of the array by default. To figure out the length of a whole array, use ^SIZE on an array variable with empty brackets. (See Examples below.) You cannot use ^SIZE on arrays larger than 64K.

The following specifications,where idx and ndx are literals, are recognized as compile-time constants.

^SIZE(dvar[ndx])
^SIZE(var(idx))
^SIZE(dvar[ndx](idx))

If you compile with the /DECSCOPE or -s compiler option, specifying ^SIZE of a real array or a pseudo array returns the size of the whole array.

Examples

Assume the following data division statements:

record
    aa          ,a10,   "abcdefghij"
    bb          ,d6,    102507
    cc          ,d1,    4

Here are some examples using ^SIZE:

Function	Length
^size(aa)	10
^size(aa(5,7))	3
^size(aa(6:-2))	2
^size(aa(bb(2,3),cc))	3

The following subroutine rotates the characters in what to the left. We used the ^SIZE function because there’s no way of knowing in advance how long what will be.

subroutine rotat
    what        ,a
record
    first       ,a1
proc
    first = what(1, 1)
    what = what(2, ^size(what))
    what(^size(what):1) = first
    xreturn
end

The following example returns the length of the entire arg array:

function GetLen, i4
    arg, [*]a256
proc
    freturn ^size(arg[]) / ^size(arg)
endfunction