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Informix Error -4301

-4301 The program has too many levels of WHILE, FOR, MENU, and/or

CASE statements.

You can only nest CASE, FOR, MENU, and WHILE statements (in any combination) to a depth of 25. Rearrange the program so that the nesting depth does not exceed 25, for example, by moving some of the inner structures to a separate module or isolating them in a function.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-4301 fires when CASE, FOR, MENU, and WHILE statements are nested (in any combination) deeper than 25 levels — per the official guidance, this is a hard nesting-depth limit.

  1. CASE/FOR/MENU/WHILE statements nested more than 25 levels deep, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Rearrange the program so the nesting depth doesn't exceed 25, per the official guidance — for example, by moving inner structures to a separate module or isolating them in a function.
Examples
Reducing nesting by extracting a function

Move a deeply nested inner loop or CASE block into its own function, called from the outer structure, rather than nesting everything in one place.

Diagnostic Checks
  1. Count the nesting depth of CASE/FOR/MENU/WHILE statements, and extract inner structures into separate functions if it exceeds 25.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -4300 — "This statement contains too many levels of function call nesting." A related nesting-depth limit, about function-call nesting within an expression rather than control-structure nesting.

CASE/FOR/MENU/WHILE statements are nested more than 25 levels deep — extract inner structures into separate functions.