Re: COBOL and varying argument lists, etc.

S
Hello Domenico and Jon,

Thanks for the example Domenico.  It does appear the using ADDRESS OF is the 
only native 
COBOL way of determining passed arguments.  It is also possible to use the 
CEETSTA API 
if arguments have been OMITTED.  I had similar code to yours but I tested the 
parameter 
directly.  Here is the sample code I used:

*************** Beginning of data **********************
       ID DIVISION.                                     
         PROGRAM-ID. EXAMPLE.                           
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.                         
       LINKAGE SECTION.                                 
         01 PARM1 PIC S9(9) BINARY.                     
         01 PARM2 PIC X(30).                            
         01 PARM3 PIC X(10).                            
       PROCEDURE DIVISION USING PARM1 PARM2 PARM3.      
         PARA-1.                                        
            IF ADDRESS OF PARM1 = NULL                  
               DISPLAY "PARM1 is NULL".                 
            IF ADDRESS OF PARM2 = NULL                  
               DISPLAY "PARM2 is NULL".                 
            IF ADDRESS OF PARM3 = NULL                  
               DISPLAY "PARM3 is NULL".                 
            EXIT PROGRAM.                               
****************** End of data *************************

Jon sent me e-mail indicating that RPG always passes a minimum amount of 
descriptor 
information thus allowing %PARMS to work.  COBOL doesn't pass any descriptor 
information 
unless you tell it to so do.  Adding the following incantation to the SPECIAL 
NAMES 
paragraph caused the correct parameter information to be passed.
        LINKAGE TYPE IS PROCEDURE FOR "GETDAY" USING ALL ARE DESCRIBED.

I still have a question in with IBM support regarding this because without the 
above 
incantation %PARMS is greater than zero when nothing is passed and zero when 
something 
is passed.  For example:

     call linkage procedure "GETDAY"                  
          returning day-nbr       

and %PARMS should be zero but is actually greater than zero

     call linkage procedure "GETDAY"      
          using a-date           
          returning day-nbr       

and %PARMS should be one but is zero.  This seems so wrong it is worth a PMR.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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