Using Macro Vars to Define Extract Location Retrieves Only 1 Char in the REST Web Service

The developer is using macro variables to define where on the screen to extract a piece of data and the macro extracts it properly, but the web service built on that macro always replies with only a 1-character string. The macro is using macro variables to define the location of an extract field. It uses the search function to find the location of a name – one of 5 possible locations on the screen – calculates the row and the starting and ending columns, then does the extract of the name to a global variable. We’ve verified, using traces, that the location variables are all set correctly, and if we extract that same location to a macro variable, a trace of that proves it’s pulling the entire field just as expected, and if you run the macro interactively, it displays the entire extracted name.

The problem is with the global variable. It always returns a 1 char field. We experimented with the variable values so it pulled from different starting columns, different rows, etc. to make sure it wasn’t something funky going on in the CICS screen definition, and the result was always just a single character value. We did notice, though, that in the int obj file the macro is defined as a single character long too, so we changed that to 26 – the length of the field for the data they were testing with - and it did finally returned the entire field. It always finds the value and calculates the correct starting position and returns the first character of the field, but nothing more, so I’m guessing the runtime is not replacing that particular value – the “1” for the length – like it should at runtime. Note: We've tested the issue in HATS v9.7.0.1 and v9.7.1 with the same results.

The web service should perform the same as the HATS macro does in the interactive HATS Host Terminal to ensure same/same behavior for users of the generated REST API.