gnubol: Re: Cobol Compiler Suggested Tasks

[Tim Josling <tej@melbpc.org.au>]

Rich,

On the timing six weeks to start should not be an issue. Anyway
there is sure to be plenty left to do in six weeks!

The XP apprach to timing is that you normally timebox things. If
something is not done after the timebox it gets reassigned. At
some point with lack of progress tasks will get reassigned but
there will be plenty of warning. Months not weeks anyway at this
stage. 

I have defined nothing about the interface to the file IO. Come
up with a rought first cut and we will go 
from there. 

I guess you would be passed some kind of file handle, an
operation code (read write etc) and any data you need. I think
with read there is a complexity...

If you say "read file-01" then the record read from the file is
in effect available to all the 01 records in the FD for that
file, regardless of length. There is no space filling or
truncation. If you say read file-01 into rec-01 then it also gets
copied into rec-01 and truncated or space filled as needed.

I think probably the code generated by the compiler should do the
move truncate etc, so your interface for a read may look like
this

cobr_read(file_handle, char** record_ptr_address, int * length,
int * status_info)

(or it may not, that it completely off the top of my head. I have
not even read the standard on file IO - defintiely worth doign
before coding). Probably also need some more diagnostic
infomation for when things go wrong.

As you see I like to keep it simple.

Feedback on the doco is welcome also,

Don't wreck your back moving!

Tim Josling

Rich Sahlender wrote:
> 
> Thanks Tim, this is great. What are your schedule expectations
> for this? I will be busy moving out of a rental house and into
> a motel by the end of this month, and then out of the motel
> and into our new house in mid to late June. I will have some
> time to work on this, but I will be limited by the moves for the
> next 6 weeks or so. After we're in the new house later in June
> I'll be able to work more seriously on this. Is this okay? I
> sure hope so...
> 
> I have just a few quick questions for you which may be answered
> in the detail on your web pages, but I've not yet had a chance
> to read them. I will do so over the next couple days.
> 
> On Sun, May 07, 2000 at 04:58:31PM +1000, Tim Josling wrote:
> >
> > Rich Sahlender: runtime routine for FILE IO for Random file.
> > Probably also needs a utility to create such a file.
> 
> I'll assume by Random you mean both Relative and Indexed files.
> 
> >
> > For programming tasks, it is a good idea to define the interface
> > to the program you are writing first. Once we have that agreed,
> > write the code.
> 
> Okay... is there enough detail in your web pages for me to know
> what is available to be passed at the time of open/close
> read/write etc or do we need to define that as well? As an
> example, for a "read into" or "write from" will the length and
> address of the working-storage structure be already available
> somewhere?
> 
> >
> > 6.Native Packed decimal support (very hard). Contribute patches
> > to GCC to provide native support for packed decimal arithmetic on
> > platforms that support it like S/390. Skills required: excellent
> > knowledge of GCC internals and the target machine codes involved,
> > excellent C coding skills. Should also be willing to provide
> > builtin routines for platforms without useful packed decimal
> > supprort. This is a hard task because the GCC internal structure
> > assumes oprtations are done with reigsters, which is usually not
> > the case for packed decimal instructions. An alternative approach
> > to this problem could be to provide builtin routines for packed
> > decimal which just happen to include some 'asm' assembler inline
> > code on certain platforms (you can check for the platform using
> > #ifdef type contructs)
> >
> 
> I would like to help with this but lack some of the skills required
> to take it fully. I am not familiar with gcc internals, but I am an
> expert at S/390 assembler and packed decimal operations on the
> mainframe platform. Has anyone offered to take this yet?
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> Rich

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