Why doesn the %CHAR built-in function work with numeric values?
Under the initial release of OS/400 Version 4, Release 2, the %CHAR built-in function was introduced. However, the function, as designed, only converted DATE values to character values. This proved to be too restrictive a use for this function. In OS/400 V4R4 IBM will added function to %CHAR allowing it to convert all forms of non-character data to character. In that release %CHAR works with numeric values.
