Re: COBOL 101 Question

[Tom Liotta <qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Munday wrote:

> I have an elementary question about initializing a table.  Because of staff turnover, there are no experienced programmers here who can answer this.
>
> I have a code example which sets a counter and initializes each table element until all have been initialized.  Is it possible just to issue an initialize on the whole table?  We do that in RPG.

Robert:

First, do you still consider this a 'COBOL 101' question?  :-)

Second, AFAIK, be aware that initialization in RPG via RESET is not 
exactly equivalent to COBOL via INITIALIZE. INITIALIZE will not 
honor VALUE clause values, where RESET will honor INZ() values.

If you need to initialize to some specific values that are not 
essentially blanks and zeros, then you should hold a copy of the 
variable and MOVE that copy into your structure instead of using 
INITIALIZE.

Tom Liotta