Question on Cobol (Unix) file layouts...

[Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxx]

 >> His views on the brevity of COBOL vs. RPG _are_ a little weird,
however. :-)

Weird - me!  Now who would think that of me .......... (Bruce, Don - you
can take that grin off your faces!!)

What I meant was that I don't see that something like the following is any
more long-winded in COBOL than in RPG.



Here's the RPG IV:




 D MyData          DS
 D  FirstField                   10A
 D  SecondField                   9S 2
 D  AnArray                      10A   Dim(20)
 D  LastField                          Like(SecondField)


And here's the COBOL:


 01  MyData.
     05  FirstField    Pic X(10).
     05  SecondField   Pic S9(7)V99.
     05  AnArray       Pic X(10) Occurs 20.
     05  LastField     Like SecondField.


The only real extra typing in the COBOL is the PIC clause which I could
abbreviate (and use REPLACE on) if I wished.  The point I was trying to
make is that most people's view of COBOL as verbose is based on a very old
version of COBOL (ANSI 68 or 74) that no-one uses.  In many cases I know
well known RPG experts who when they had to code in COBOL found that it
often took _less_ lines of code than RPG.  Of course their reputation would
be shot to hell if they admitted that in public <vbg>



Jon Paris


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