RE: Testing for valid numeric in an alpha field

[Dan <dbcerpg@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Stone, Joel" <StoneJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> COBOL & RPG are pretty much the same regarding IF  ...  ENDIF.

All the COBOL code I've been working with does NOT use the END-IF.  What a 
relief that is!

> Unfortunately RPG is still behind in many areas.  In your example, in RPG
> you cannot test the first four bytes of a field without moving to another
> field (as far as I know).

With the new free-form specs (c/free) that came out in v5r1, I believe this is 
no longer true,
from what I've heard, but I haven't actually tried it out myself.  With a few 
BIF's and no
indicators.  This is a real *rough* idea from what I know:

       If  %check('1234567890' : %subst(VNCOMPANY:1:4))

> Most people would never suggest ending an IF stmt with a period.  Periods
> are too hard to see, they can be commented out and seem to be there but are
> just comments, and they arent so reliable.

Agreed!  Now that I know of the END-IF, well, that pain is gone.

> Not sure what you mean that Cobol can have multiple IF's on one stmt.  Are
> you defining one stmt as one source line?  No one ever puts multiple IF's on
> one source line I dont think.
 
Here's the code I am dealing with that explains this:

       IF VNGROUP = 'CORP' AND LFNCT-OT = 'E'
         IF WS-VNCOMPANY-1-4 = SPACES
           MOVE 0030             TO WS-VND-COMPANY
          ELSE
           MOVE WS-VNCOMPANY-1-4 TO WS-VND-COMPANY.

How would I do an ELSE on the first IF after this code snippet?  Just remove 
the period and add
the ELSE condition, with a period at the end?  If so, bleahhh.

Thanks to all who helped me on this one!

- Dan

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