Re: Question on Cobol (Unix) file layouts...

[Howard Weatherly <hweatherly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jon, 

I must disagree with you on this, COBOL most certainly has a USAGE
clause and has since it's inception. The degree to which it is used and
it's value is questionable however, but if you specify USAGE is (see
COBOL manual for optons) at a group level then that usage applies to all
subfields defined in that group. You can specify USAGE at the elementry
level and it will apply only to that item. Any time you specify COMP,
COMP-3 etc... you are implicitly specifying the "USAGE" clause and
explicitly defining the way the data is stored (looks) in storage.

"""Note, this in no way refutes the intent of Jons message, only the
COBOL part."""

Jon.Paris@halinfo.it wrote:
> 
> This is just standard COBOL Chuck - nothing Unixy about it.
> 
> The V is an implied decimal point therefore 9(5)V99 is equivalent to a 7,2
> and needs to be defined that way.  Because they have no usage clause
> defining the format ( a COMP or COMPUTATIONAL-3 for example) then they are
> implicitly USAGE DISPLAY which is equivalent to 7S 2 in RPG terms.
> 
> If you have any other COBOL ?s I'd be happy to try answer them - I'm
> bilingual !!
> 
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Howard Weatherly

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hweatherly@dlis.dla.mil
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