[Info-vax] Calling $CREPRC in COBOL

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 6/10/22 15:22, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article <t804ht$a69$1 at dont-email.me>, "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> writes:
>>
>> On 6/10/22 1:27 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> On 6/10/22 14:16, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>>> On 6/10/22 12:39 PM, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>>>>     10  ENQ-TYPE      PIC X(1)  VALUE EXTERNAL PQL$_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 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.
> 
> You and Bill know more than I about COBOL.  It doesnt even look like code to
> me.
> 
> The customer said that they got this code many years ago.  The problem is that
> without defining those quotas, a process can not run a new piece of code.  They
> don't understand it and call it "SPAWNing" which is how they do most of their
> COBOL (COBOL writes .COM, LIB$SPAWN runs it).  Fugly.
> 

To each his own.  I think PHP and Python are ugly.  :-)

I don't suppose the program has any documentation.  :-)

bill