Cause: The CALL command, especially when processed via a SBMJOB, handles numerics better as 15,5 packed.

Solution 1: Store all numerics being used as parameters as 15,5 packed.

Solution 2: Store all parameters embedded in a character datastructure and pass a single parameter, the datastructure.

Solution 3: Use another object, such as a file or a data area, to contain the parameters.

Solution 4: And my favorite. Write your own command and use that, instead of CALL, on your SBMJOB commands.

When you do a SBMJOB you have a parameter called CMD. Traditionally people put in here a CALL command and then call their program directly. However, when dealing with numeric parameters you can get into big trouble.

Let's say you have a RPG program which calls another program. The first program has a screen which processes some information and passes it to the second program. And maybe this second program is rather intensive and you want that to run in batch. Then you may have the following in your first program:

     C                     CALL 'MYPGM'
     C                     PARM           MYNBR   50

             CMD        PROMPT('Your description here')
             PARM       KWD(MYNBR) TYPE(*DEC) LEN(5) MIN(1) CHOICE('Valid +
                          number') PROMPT('Enter number here')

To see how this looks you can they type in the following at a command line MYPGM and hit and you will get a prompt screen. Yes, you can design a 400 screen with so few lines of code.

And your second program may have:

PGM (                                                                +
      &PARM1           /* My numeric variable                     */ +
      &PARM2           /*                                         */ +
    )

    DCL  &PARM1       *DEC    5  /* My numeric variable              */
    DCL  &JOBINFO     *CHAR   1  /* 1=Interactive, 0=Batch           */

    /*                                                                         +
     | Retrieve current job type                                               +
    */
             RTVJOBA    TYPE(&JOBINFO)

    /*                                                                         +
     | Submit job if currently interactive                                     +
    */
             IF         COND(&JOBINFO = '1') THEN(DO)
             SBMJOB     CMD(MYPGM MYNBR(&MYNBR))
             GOTO       CMDLBL(END)
             ENDDO
 
    /*                                                                         +
     | Do your real processing here                                            +
    */
 
END:

             ENDPGM

Why do my input parameters contain garbage when the program is called from the command line, or SBMJOB?

When I pass numeric parameters to my RPG program from the command line my program isn't working as expected, why?