On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:19:39 -0300, Clark Morris wrote: > ... >What field is 1,4,CH? Why should an applications programmer have to >know in 2020 that offset 5 in the COBOL data division map means 6 if >it is a fixed block file and 10 if it is a variable block file? > >>>> PL1 and COBOL both generate fairly efficient code and when >>> the tool becomes more than one off wonder, someone else can pick up >>> the program and have a fighting chance of understanding what was being >>> done. >> That hypothetical "someone else" would benefit if the operands were keyword rather than positional. Rather than "1,4,CH", "OFFSET=1,LENGTH=4,TYPE=CH".
Counting the RDW is absurd. Offsets should always be relative to the start of the data. If it's necessary to cite the RDW (to sort or select by record length?) it should be "OFFSET=-3,LENGTH=4,TYPE=BINARY". How does this play with RECFM=VBS? With UNIX files, variable length but no RDW? -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
