> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Jim McAlpine
> Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 12:10 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: COBOL and European edit masks
>
> We have a large application with thousands of COBOL programs many of
which
> have edit masks UK/USA style ie with comma separators and decimal
> points like so - 999,999,999.99. We need to alter the picture clauses
so
> they cause the numeric edited items to appear in European format ie
with
> the
> "," and "." transposed like so - 999.999.999,99. Is there any way to
> accomplish this automagically in COBOL. We are trying not to have to
find
> and edit every edit mask in every program which would be a very large
and
> onerous undertaking.
>
> Any ideas very much welcomed.
Jim,
The programs still have to be changed, but the change is common for all
of them. You have to add a SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph in the CONFIGURATION
SECTION of the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION, like this:
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
SPECIAL-NAMES.
DECIMAL POINT IS COMMA.
None of your PICTURE clauses has to change at all, this will
automatically interchange all the commas and periods at compile time.
Obviously a program compiled with this clause will *ONLY* produce
European-style edited numbers. Your US/UK and European programs will
need to be separate from each other.
AFAIK there is no run-time option to do this, only compile-time.
HTH
Peter
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