Informix Error -1361

Cause and resolution

Illegal TEXT or BYTE file name. Null names are not permitted.

The BYTE or TEXT variable has been located in a file using the 4GL statement LOCATE. However, the filename that is given for the variable is a null string. Because the file does not exist, 4GL cannot do anything with it.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-1361 fires when a LOCATE statement is given an empty string as the target filename for a BYTE/TEXT variable — per the official guidance, a file can't exist with a null name.

LOCATE given an empty string for the filename, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause, typically from an unset or uninitialized variable supplying the filename.

Solutions / Resolution

Supply a genuine, non-empty filename to LOCATE, per the official guidance.
Check the source of the filename variable for why it evaluated to an empty string, if it wasn't a literal.

Examples

LOCATE with an empty filename

DEFINE v_filename CHAR(50);
LOCATE v_text_var IN FILE v_filename;
-- -1361: v_filename was never assigned, so it's empty

Corrected

LET v_filename = "/tmp/staging.txt";
LOCATE v_text_var IN FILE v_filename;

Diagnostic Checks

Check the value of the filename variable/expression passed to LOCATE at the point of failure.

Related Errors / Related Topics

No closely related error codes are cross-referenced for -1361 in this set yet.

LOCATE was given an empty filename — check the source of the filename variable.