The PL/1 preprocessor is IMHO the most powerful tool to do such things, but maybe you don't have it, if you have no PL/1 licensed.
The ASSEMBLER macro processor will not work, because you cannot extract the result and send it to the COBOL compiler, AFAIK. The C preprocessor would work, if you have it. I believe that C belongs to z/OS, so you don't need to license it. But the C preprocessor is very simple and somewhat restricted. Don't know if it serves your needs. So maybe you will have to write your own. This can be done using REXX or C or any other language - even COBOL. I would use C, others maybe REXX. Kind regards Bernd Am 17.11.2011 21:01, schrieb John Gilmore:
If you want to do this in a procedural language use the PL/I preprocessor, compared to which the C preprocessor is unseriös. Anyone who knows REXX, a PL/I dialect, will find it easy to use; and its string-processing facilities are very powerful, almost as powerful as those of PL/I proper. That said, the HLASM macro language is yet more powerful, as I would of course be expected to say. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
