Item Initialization During Rendering

In most cases, you supply values to a Render activity through mapping. However, you are not always required to supply a value this way.

When you omit a value, one of two things happens:

  • The Plug-in checks for any initial value supplied in a COBOL VALUE clause or PL/I INIT attribute and renders it if it is present.
  • Otherwise, the binary data is formed according to the policies described in the following table.

This table also describes any padding that results due to insufficient data length, layout gaps, and so forth.

Render Activities — Initialization Policies
Item Type Action
COBOL text items 
(PIC X or G) The Filler setting of the activity is used to initialize missing items or pad shorter strings.
PL/I CHAR, WIDECHAR, GRAPHIC, and BIT items with VARYING or VARYINGZ
Padding within a REDEFINE group or UNION The Filler setting is used.
Gaps due to PL/I alignment or COBOL slack bytes and top-level item placement (double-word boundary)
Any items with their XSD type set to base64Binary via the Field Configuration page, except CHAR, WIDECHAR, GRAPHIC and BIT The Filler setting is used to initialize missing items or pad shorter values.
PL/I CHAR items without VARYING or VARYINGZ A space is used as a filler and a padding character. The exact value of the space depends on a Character Set of the activity.
All RPG text items
PL/I WIDECHAR with no XSD Type base64Binary selected A space in UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE character set depending on whether the Big Endian setting is used.
PL/I CHAR, WIDECHAR with XSD Type base64Binary selected The Filler setting of the activity is used to initialize missing items or pad shorter strings. If VARYING or VARYINGZ are specified, the Filler is used for both the variable string data as well as the space between the variable data and the declared length. Note that 2-byte length prefix for VARYING and zero terminator for VARYINGZ are always generated.
PL/I GRAPHIC A DBCS space (x4040) is used. Note that 2-byte length prefix for VARYING and zero terminator for VARYINGZ are always generated.
PL/I BIT A zero byte is used as a filler. Note that 2-byte length prefix for VARYING and zero terminator for VARYINGZ are always generated.
COBOL fields with DATE The setting Default Numeric and DATE Items to is in effect. When Type Defaults is selected, the default date 0001-01-01 is rendered. Otherwise a zero byte is used as a filler.
COBOL external floating point items The setting Default Numeric and DATE Items to is in effect. When Type Defaults is selected, the numeric value 0 is rendered according to the copybook specifics and activity settings. Otherwise a zero byte is used as a filler.
COBOL Numeric-Edited items
COBOL zoned and packed decimal items
COBOL COMP-1 and COMP-2 items A zero byte is used as filler.
Note: The cases not described in the previous table always require a value, either through a mapping or VALUE/INIT clauses.