Informix Error -4072

-4072 Cannot expand structure with no members.

The statement attempted to perform an expansion, but it failed. The expansion was of the form object.*, but the object that is named does not have any public member variables, so the expansion set is empty. Check that you are referring to the correct class and member.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-4072 fires when an object.* expansion is attempted on an object with no public member variables — per the official guidance, the expansion set would be empty since there are no public members to expand.

An object.* expansion on an object with no public member variables, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.

Solutions / Resolution

Check that the correct class and member were referenced, per the official guidance.

Examples

Expanding an object with only PRIVATE members

CLASS Marker
  DEFINE PRIVATE flag SMALLINT

  FUNCTION Marker()
  END FUNCTION
END CLASS

DEFINE m Marker
DISPLAY m.*
-- -4072: Marker has no PUBLIC member variables to expand

Corrected

CLASS Marker
  DEFINE PUBLIC flag SMALLINT

  FUNCTION Marker()
  END FUNCTION
END CLASS

Diagnostic Checks

Check whether the object's class has any PUBLIC member variables, and confirm the correct object/class was referenced.

Related Errors / Related Topics

-4030 — "Warning: Cannot further expand an expanded expression." A related .* expansion error, about applying .* more than once rather than expanding an object with no public members.

An object.* expansion was attempted on an object with no PUBLIC member variables — check the class and member referenced.