Re: [GNU-COBOL] New to list

[Fred Mobach <fred@mobach.nl>]

Davyd Ondrejko wrote:

> In standard COBOL, there are also alphanumeric edited fields, which
> allow the /, B and 0 characters.  For example, if you move a data item
> with a value of "102899" into a variable with PIC XX/XX/XX, the result
> is "10/28/99".  The other characters are used similarly.  Moving
> "ABC123" into a PIC XBXX/XXX gives "A BC/123".  And so forth.
>
> COBOL 85 introduces a few new tricks that might have an influence on how
> storage is handled in the Gnubol implementation.  The most important one
> is the de-editing MOVE.  In COBOL 74, moving a PIC S9(4)V99 field into a
> PIC $ZZZ,Z9.99 field was perfectly legal, but moving the latter into the
> former was illegal.  COBOL 85 makes that possible.  Another trivial (to
> My mind) change that can cause programmers to go nuts is the allowance
> of the decimal point or comma as the rightmost character in a PIC clause
> -- but ONLY if the ending period comes right after.
>
> That means that
>
>         15  MY-VAR1         COMP SYNC   PIC 999..
>
> would be valid, but
>
>         15  MY-VAR1         PIC 999.   COMP SYNC.
>
> would not be.  Why would you want to do that?  I don't know, but them's
> the rules.

You're completely right, but I didn't want to discuss Cobol 85 matters, the
Cobol 74 is already enough for some of us in this stage. Not everybody has
expirience in Cobol.


> > That would be great to get that copy. Please send it to :
> > Fred Mobach
> > Den Akker 8
> > 4054 MD  Echteld
> > The Netherlands
>
> If you like, I could try to scan it in to the computer and just send it
> via email; might that work better?

Whatever you want I will be gratefull.


> > You will only get that warning if you're using a constant greater than
> > 9999, I assume. Or is the DOS/VSE compiler so nice to check on the value
> > boundaries after each arithmetic operation ?
>
> No, that's the way it works.  We use the larger values to pass a large
> comm area in CICS; the variable that goes into the CICS command is
> required to be a signed binary half-word, but sometimes the comm area is
> bigger than 9999 bytes long ...

I see, just the same as in applications on my own TP monitor.

Regards,

Fred


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