Re: [COBOL400-L] Regarding Cobol CopyBook

[MichaelQuigley@xxxxxxxxxx]

   Ed,

   A copybook can be any source code: working-storage, environment division,
   procedure division, . . . .  If there is source code in a COBOL program
   which will be used in multiple programs, it is often put in a copybook.
    Then any program can include this source by using the copy statement.

   As far as converting copybooks to other formats, I don't think that's what
   you really mean.  Perhaps the function of the copybook can be moved to a
   dynamic program call or static procedure call, but the a copybook is just
   a portion of COBOL source.
   I hope that helps.

   Michael

   Original message:
   --------------------------------------------------

   date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:26:08 -0700 (PDT)
   from: "E. Narayanan" <ed_narayanan@xxxxxxxxx>
   subject: [COBOL400-L] Regarding Cobol CopyBook

   Hi,
   I am a java programmer. I am working on converting
   Cobol copybooks to other formats. I went through a
   couple of Cobol tutorials but could not find any
   reference to copybook in them.

   - Is copybook a way of representing the Working
   Storage section in a file just like "include files" in
   C/C++ or is it more than that ? Or is it like a data
   format definition like an XSD ?

   - Is there any standard specification for copybook
   which I can reference. Searching on google only
   yielded examples of copybooks rather than the spec
   itself.

   Any links would be appreciated !

   Thanks,
   Ed