I'm using &&FOCSECUSER in my DBA security. I have it in my MFDs as a variable, then later on I need to do a DEFINE to get upper case and a substring starting in position 5, because I want to skip over the 'pth/' part of the variable. I tried several variations of this, but the error remains. Below is what I did (generalized), which works. However, in the synonym canvas of App Studio the CURRENT_USER field (the DEFINE) shows in red, and by looking at the properties the error is

(FOC101) ERROR IN DEFINE IN MASTER FILE: CURRENT_USER
(FOC36335) PARAMETER LENGTH CONFLICT IN FUNCTION "SUBSTRING", ARG 1.

When I save the MFD, App Studio displays a warning that it failed validation, but I can say OK and it will save, and the thing actually does work when I access the MFD.

So, 2 questions:

1 - How do I make the error go away (just to make me feel good)
2 - Does anyone know where these FOC errors (all of them) are defined? I tried the technical library but no entry for the 36335 error.


FILENAME=thefile, SUFFIX=SQLORA ,
REMARKS='Data File', $
VARIABLE NAME=&&FOCSECUSER, USAGE=A50V, $
SEGMENT=thesegment, SEGTYPE=S0,
DESCRIPTION='the description', $
FIELDNAME=USER_ID, ALIAS=USER_ID, USAGE=A50V, ACTUAL=A50V, ACCESS_PROPERTY=(INTERNAL),
TITLE='UserID', DESCRIPTION='User ID - Key Field', $
DEFINE CURRENT_USER/A50V=UPPER( SUBSTRING( '&&FOCSECUSER', 5, 46 ) );
DESCRIPTION='User ID', $
END
DBA=thedbapassword, $
USER=A, ACCESS=R, RESTRICT=VALUE_WHERE, NAME=SYSTEM, VALUE=USER_ID EQ CURRENT_USER;, $

Solution:

I opened a ticket with IBI, and John Cullen sent me an idea that worked. It has to do with the subroutine not resolving the length, so he added an intermediate DEFINE like below. The intermediate define has a known length of 50 now (the &&FOCSECUSER did not have a known length). And this gets converted to SQL properly so you get aggregation done at the DBMS level.

DEFINE FOCSECUSER/A50='&&FOCSECUSER'; ACCESS_PROPERTY=(INTERNAL),
DESCRIPTION='This is an intermediary define to get the logged-on user.', $

DEFINE CURRENT_USER/A50=UPPER( SUBSTRING( FOCSECUSER, 5, 45 ) ); ACCESS_PROPERTY=(INTERNAL),
DESCRIPTION='Returns the logged-on user. For DBA securirty purposes.', $

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mike in DeLand,

In the Text Editor, type ? Error Number and you get a little more detail.

? 36335 returned the following:

(FOC36335) PARAMETER LENGTH CONFLICT IN FUNCTION "%1", ARG %2.
The parameter length of a user function or a directive is either
below or above enforced limits or conflicts with the length
provided as a constant in another parameter.

DOH! I totally forgot about that. Thanks!

does 8 have different functional forms?
I see
SUBSTR(length, source_string, start, end, sublength, output)
as the functional form for the SUBSTR function, but I'm reading a 7705 functions manual.

Yes, they are called Simplified Character Functions introduced in 8.x. According to the manual, they have streamlined parameter lists, similar to those used by SQL functions and don't have output arguments. Instead each function has a specified data type.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BabakNYC,