[Info-vax] Calling $CREPRC in COBOL

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 6/10/22 15:03, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> 
> On 6/10/22 1:27 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 6/10/22 14:16, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>> On 6/10/22 12:39 PM, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>>>    10  ENQ-TYPE      PIC X(1)  VALUE EXTERNAL PQL$_ENQLM.
>>>> ..............^
>>>> %COBOL-E-EXTREFVAL, VALUE EXTERNAL clause ignored - valid only on COMP
>>>> data-item
>>>>
>>>> How do you put PQL$ items in to a COBOL "byte"?
>>>
>>> I never knew much COBOL and haven't looked at any in decades, but I
>>> would think for a one-byte integer it would be "PIC 9(1)" rather than
>>> "PIC X(1)".
>>
>> PIC X(1) would be more likely to be a byte than PIC 9(1) as
>> PIC 9(1) is one decimal digit and PIC X(1) is one character.
>>
>> But neither is correct.
> 
> So, since you frequently brag about your COBOL prowess here, why not
> give the correct answer?

I haven't touched VMS COBOL in 2 decades since they threw both COBOL
and VMS out the door at the University of Scranton.  But, in any event
I have no idea what POL$_ENOLM means or what he is trying to do with it.
A rough guess would be rather than declaring it external he needs to
use some VMS Specific function to grab the value and load it into
ENO-TYPE.

> 
> I did forget that "size" doesn't actually mean size but rather display
> digits or something.  "PIC 9(9) COMP" is a 4-byte integer, "PIC 9(4)
> COMP" is a 2-byte integer.  By extension, "PIC 9(3) COMP" *might* be a
> 1-byte integer, but I couldn't quickly find any documentation on it.

Possible.  I no longer have my Grey Wall or I wold look it up.  :-)

bill