The target of the SUBSTRING statement must be a field or an unqualified reference to a data member or variable

When using SUBSTRING statement with a function as the "target" the following error is received: The target of the SUBSTRING statement must be a field or an unqualified reference to a data member or variable

Oct 4, 2011
Knowledge

Title

URL Name

The-target-of-the-SUBSTRING-statement-must-be-a-field-or-an-unqualified-reference-to-a-data-member-or-variable

Article Number

000142035

Environment

OpenEdge 10.1C OpenEdge 10.2A OpenEdge 10.2B

Question/Problem Description

* The following code would compile in OE versions prior to 10.2B01, but throws an error when compiled in versions 10.2B01 onwards

DEFINE VARIABLE iSomething AS INTEGER INITIAL 100 NO-UNDO.

SUBSTRING(STRING(iSomething),2,1) = "".

Note that the SUBSTRING statement is being used with the STRING function as the target, instead of a variable of a field (as stated in the documentation)

Steps to Reproduce

Clarifying Information

Error Message

The target of the SUBSTRING statement must be a field or an unqualified reference to a data member or variable

Defect Number

Enhancement Number

Cause

This is expected behavior.

Resolution

Using SUBSTRING in this way is not allowed.
As per the documentation the SUBSTRING statement inserts content from a specified expression into a field or variable, it is not expected to replace the returned value of a function (that is not being stored anywhere) at runtime.
Prior to version 10.2B01 the code would compile, but the statement would do nothing, to avoid this failing a fix was introduced in version 10.2B01 that now prevents it to compile code with this kind of invalid statements.

Workaround

To prevent getting this error first assign the value returned by the FUNCTION into a variable or field and then use it with the SUBSTRING statement.

e.g

DEFINE VARIABLE iSomething AS INTEGER INITIAL 100 NO-UNDO.
DEFINE VARIABLE cVar AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.

cVar = STRING(iSomething),

SUBSTRING(cVar,2,1) = "".

Notes

Keyword Phrase

Last Modified Date

8/2/2018 1:48 PM

The target of the SUBSTRING statement must be a field or an unqualified reference to a data member or variable

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