Re: COBOL File Specs to DDS or SQL

[Jim Essinger <dilbernator@xxxxxxxxx>]

Larry,

COBOL specs are tricky in that some of the redefines are relevant.  For
example;

 01  Date-convert-fields.
           05  YY-MM-DD                 Pic  X(07) value 0. <--- Character
           05  Date-CYYMMDD redefines YY-MM-DD.     <-- COBOL makes this a
character field
               10  Ws-Century           PIC  9(01) display.  <-- Number -
not packed
               10  Ws-Year              PIC  9(02) display.
               10  Ws-Month             PIC  9(02) display.
               10  Ws-Day               PIC  9(02) display.

Do you need to have access to the subfields  of Date-CYMMDD? or the group
field itself? Can you pragmatically  make a determination if the field
should be character or number?  If number, can it be packed or must it be
display?

I would encourage you to ask this question in the COBOL discussion list.

Jim

On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 7:30 AM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Suppose I had some COBOL specifications that defined a file layout.
> Could I take those and programatically turn it into either DDS or an SQL
> statement to create the file? The Specs are available in a file.
>
> Thing is the record is 12,000 bytes wide and the COBOL specs are 4,500
> lines long! Many are redefines and sub-fields which are not needed.
> Doing this by hand seems daunting and fraught with peril. Incoming file
> needs to be read, processed and then returned to customer with
> delimiters between fields.
>
>      Help?
>
>          - Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis
> --
> This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
> or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.