Re: how to handle date comparison

On 09-Aug-2016 14:08 -0500, Stone, Joel wrote:

In COBOL, what is a good method of comparing a data field date to the
current date?

It seems that ALL data fields must be declared to appear with a
separator character.

And it seems that the CURRENT-DATE function cannot return a date
separator.

Is it mandatory to break apart the current date, and string it back
together with a separator?

Surely there must be an easier way to write something like:

If Cust-add-date = ws-curr-date

where Cust-add-date is type "L" format *MDY

without breaking apart and rebuilding the current date?

Is use of the Conversion Options (CVTOPT) *DATE directive on the compile [e.g. on a Create Bound COBOL Program (CRTBNDCBL)] to tell the compiler that the /field/ "date data types are declared as category *date* COBOL data-items" sufficient? That text for the *DATE directive would seem to imply that the field having been data-typed as *date*, that comparisons with the fields should be done for the value of the date rather than with the value of the formatted character-string that would be used for presentation; i.e. the form that is used for the presentation of or the inputting of, a date value, is a value that is programmer\user-readable, rather than an internal form used for comparisons and collations -- similar to how an integer-data-type is presented as and input as, alpha-digits, despite not being stored as alpha-digits.