On 12/2/2010 3:33 PM, Frank Swarbrick wrote:
On 12/2/2010 at 3:05 PM, in message<[email protected]>,
Steve Comstock<[email protected]> wrote:
On 12/2/2010 2:15 PM, Frank Swarbrick wrote:
On 12/2/2010 at 1:13 PM, in message<[email protected]>, Steve
Comstock<[email protected]> wrote:
I think many (not all) of the LE services are useful. For a COBOL
shop, the ability to dynamically request storage (no need to have
an Assembler subroutine) and the ability to write condition handlers
in COBOL (no need for Assembler STAE or ESTAE routines) seem to be
attractive.
I am in agreement. Though I have to admit I'd prefer that Enterprise
COBOL be upgraded to support many of these things. Certainly the
latest COBOL standard supports dynamic memory allocation with the
ALLOCATE and FREE statements. And some form of exception handling,
though I'm not sure how it would fit in with LE. I can barely spell
STAE, much less make use of it. :-)
Well, I have to say the COBOL developers ate their own dogfood,
as the saying goes: the XML PARSE structure was implemented
under the covers using condition handling.
Interesting!
On the other hand, the truth is I don't see many shops using the
CEE callable services. I think part of the problem is lack of
awareness (fixable by training, of course). Another part is lack
of leadership on trying new things.
No doubt. Which is why I'm trying to take a bit of initiative here.
Disgressing slightly, I have to admit that one of the things that
kept me from using LE services in the past was the need to handle
the feedback code. In VSE all of the documentation specifically
states "COBOL programs must provide the feedback code parameter in
each call to an LE/VSE callable service." What's really frustrating
is I don't even think it's true! There is no OMITTED keyword in
COBOL for VSE/ESA, but you can simulate it:
LINKAGE SECTION.
77 LS-OMITTED POINTER.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
set address of OMITTED to NULL
call "ceemsg" using CTOK CEEMSG LS-OMITTED
How strange!
What is strange about it?
The difference in VSE vs. z/OS; I thought the compiler was
essentially the same, and it's strange to me that the VSE
doc says you can't use OMITTED, but it's part of the z/OS
version of the language.
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
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