[Info-vax] COBOL example $MGBLSC

[bill]

On 9/8/2023 4:40 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/8/2023 1:55 PM, bill wrote:
>> On 9/8/2023 1:13 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/8/2023 12:45 PM, Brian Schenkenberger wrote:
>>>> I have the SYS$MGBLSC working... at least, in the debugger.  I 
>>>> defined a test global section with two longwords.
>>>>
>>>> 1,-1
>>>> 2,-2
>>>> 3,-3
>>>> etc.,-etc.
>>>> 0,0
>>>>
>>>> I have the following for the global section's element definition:
>>>>
>>>> LINKAGE SECTION.
>>>>
>>>> 01 GLOBAL-SECTION.
>>>>   02 ELEMENT OCCURS 2000 TIMES.
>>>>     03 A        PIC S9(9) COMP.
>>>>     03 B        PIC S9(9) COMP.
>>>>
>>>> and the procedure...
>>>>
>>>> PROCEDURE DIVISION USING GLOBAL_SECTION.
>>>> PARAGRAPH-MAIN.
>>>>     PERFORM PARAGRAPH-ENTER THRU PARAGRAPH-EXIT
>>>>             VARYING I FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL A(I) = 0 AND B(I) = 0.
>>>> PARAGRAPH-ENTER.
>>>>     DISPLAY "First[" I "]: " A(I) "  Second[" I "]: " B(I).
>>>> PARAGRAPH-EXIT.
>>>>     EXIT.
>>>> END PROGRAM GBLSEC.
>>>>
>>>> In the debugger, A(I) and B(I) show me the values but DISPLAY pukes 
>>>> on them. It'd be great too if there was a way to DISPLAY them in HEX 
>>>> but just getting it to DISPLAY without regurgitaing garbage would be 
>>>> great.
>>>
>>> Add a couple of temporary variables:
>>>
>>> WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
>>> 01 AI PIC 9(4) DISPLAY.
>>> 01 BI PIC 9(4) DISPLAY.
>>>
>>> and do:
>>>
>>> MOVE A(I) TO AI
>>> MOVE B(I) TO BI
>>> DISPLAY "First[" I "]: " AI "  Second[" I "]: " BI.
>>>
>>> If anyone that actually knows Cobol has a better solution then
>>> I am also interested!
>>
>> I really don't have that much experience with VMS COBOL and have no idea
>> what $MGBLSC means,
> 
> SYS$MGLBSC is the VMS system service to map a global section.
> 
>>                      but, if it is merely a display problem how about a
>> REDEFINES from COMP to DISPLAY instead of another variable and the MOVE?
> 
> How would that look like?

Can you point me at a copy of the VMS COBOL Reference Manual?
This is something VMS specific.  I tried a couple sites.  One
of them returned XML errors and sector7 pointed me at localhost.
If I can grab a quick look at the manual I can probably provide
a fairly clean way to do it.  I may even try to figure out how
to get to EISNER after the port change and then I will actually
test what I write.

> 
>> Is this unique to x86-64 or could I play with the examples on EISNER?
> 
> Not x86-64 specific. In fact I am pretty sure that Brian is not
> running it on x86-64. You could run it on VAX!
> 
> Arne
> 
> 

bill