Re: CALL PROCEDURE RETURNING with different return fields

M
Hello Leif,

You wote:
>===>apart from why the compiler does it stuff, how is
>the callee to know that you are calling it with a longer
>or shorter return value?

Because it doesn't care.  RETURNing a value from a procedure is like a MOVE 
operation.  The compiler takes care of the differences and it stops with the 
shortest field.  The callee simply returns as much data as it has and the 
receiving variable only gets as much as it has room for.  This allows the 
callee 
to make guesses based on the size of the input values.  Assuming the programmer 
making the call understands that on this call 10 bytes will be returned and on 
the next call 100 bytes will be returned then everything is fine.

What irritates me is that the COBOL compiler will allow the calls to have 
different return sizes -- just not in the same module.  That is obviously an 
artifical constraint imposed by the compiler writers trying to be too clever by 
half.

I guess I want to know if other COBOL programers find this behaviour weird too. 
 
In which case I might open a PMR.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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