Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

A small point. An index does not contain an address. It just contains the displacement of an element from the first item of the OCCURS. When looking at the first entry in a table, the index does really contain zero (although the programmer never needs to know that - until looking at a dump). Bala Ku...

If updating a dataset in place, the dataset must first be backed-up. For a QSAM dataset that would be a bit silly. No reason to update a QSAM dataset in place.

An ESDS is reasonable to update in place, as long as backed-up first.

Without the back-up it becomes a corrupt-in-place.

Kanika, That is a good way to go. You can also put a bit more into it, like have "yesterday" and "tommorow" and "last working day of the week", etc, etc. Cycle the file round from one "run" to the next. Maintain the file automatically as the first thing the &q...

All the compiler options are documented in the Programming Guide (assuming you are on a Mainframe) and the generated code has an example and is discussed there.

If you are not on a Mainframe, what COBOL compiler are you using?

Please provide a sample input file and expected output.

If you really want to change BE to BF anywhere on a record, or within certain locations, look at INREC FINDREP in the manual.

See if this link helps. If not, I think you need to make your question clearer.

Do you only want duplicates which are consecutive removed, or if record number one is the same as the last record on the file, you want the last record removed? Either can be done, but the coding would be different, so need to know. Can you show representative sample input, and required output, plea...

OUTFIL FNAMES=FBFILE,VTOF,BUILD=(5,84) would be better. OUTREC on OUTFIL is best left for backwards compatibility only. BUILD is 100% identical and does not cause confusion with OUTREC itself, which it is still correct to use when needed. INREC .... BUILD SORT .... FIELDS OUTREC .... BUILD OUTFIL ....

Yes, but not the way your title suggests.

Have a look at SAMPLE= on OUTFIL. Consult your documentation, If SAMPLE= is not available to you, there are many other ways to do it.

"All of them" "Only as many as I needed to". "About the same as you did". "None. We're on the Ground Floor" "None. I took the lift". "None. I overcame them". "If I get the job, it'll be one of the first things I'll clarify". "...

I suppose the problem with any perhaps unrepresentative set of values is that any number of formulae may be intuited which may be defeated once further results are known. So it was a bit of a silly question of mine. I went for digit one plus digit two plus (digits-one-and-two multiplied by digit thr...

Yes, they sneakily jumped over 68.

What would 497 be, Anuj?

Only if you have "powers" :-) You'll need to talk to your support people, and explain why you need it. If you have a good case, and your boss behind you, you may get lucky. Generally, you can't "just do it" as it is system memory you are gobbling up, and if 50 developers all deci...

OK. These days it is ulikely that the MOVE itself will have an instruction generated which will cause an abend. Using the subsequent result for calculation is a different thing. Here is your number (S9(3)). ZNZNSN The right-most half byte of each byte is the "Numeric" nybble - and should a...

I prefer the Green on Black. The interesting stuff is clearer, and the CODE: SELECT ALL is much less prominent.

These days 77s and 01s are the same, apart from the elementary-only nature of the 77. Previously, 77s were unalighed, and would allow more efficient use of storage for small fields, but one the 1MB limit on WORKING-STORAGE was removed, it no longer matters. Certainly Enterprise COBOL has 77s on a do...

Well, some of what you have said is correct. Howerver, why don't you try it? With a USAGE DISPLAY numeric and a PACKED-DECIMAL/COMP-3. Then look at the Language Reference and the Programming Guide to see if you can clear it up yourself, and then come back here with any problems you still have. You a...

No. This would require that the job could leave one initiator and continue in another. If you want to run something with a different class, put it in a different job.

"Collating Sequence" is the order in which bit-patterns are treateed when they are being treated "in order". IF A LESS THAN B The collating sequence tells you, for specific values of A and B, whether the IF is true or not. LOW-VALUES is the lowest and HIGH-VALUES the highest in t...