The iSeries COBOL programmer explains how to use the INITIALIZE statement for the System i. This is an add-on to an earlier post that had some errors in it, but the new post has corrected them to explain the importance of the function on the platform.

As an example, the post looks at fields within working storage, describing how the INITIALIZE field is meant to reset all of them to either zero if they’re numerical fields, or a space if they’re character fields.