I can try that. The programmer says that he intents to define the passed in area in the calling program at the front of his WORKING-STORAGE so that the area is larger. I.e. it is _planning_ on a buffer overflow and _hoping_ that it doesn't affect the calling program. I don't have authority to disallow this. And we don't do any kind of peer review because we just don't have the people left.
On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Thomas Berg <thomas.b...@swedbank.se>wrote: > I would say: the READ .. INTO .. statement doesn't look at the numerical > value in the length field, it only looks at the max possible length as > defined. And acts accordingly. > > > > Best Regards > Thomas Berg > ___________________________________________________________________ > Thomas Berg Specialist zOS\RQM\IT Delivery SWEDBANK AB (Publ) > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On > > Behalf Of John McKown > > Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 7:02 PM > > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > > Subject: COBOL "problem" (not really), but sort of. > > > > A programmer came by today with a problem. He is sometimes getting a > > S0C4-4 abend in a COBOL program. This is a subroutine. One of the > > parameters passed in is a data area, which can be of various lengths. It > > is defined with an OCCURS DEPENDING ON with a data element within the > > area. I.e. the first 05 level is PIC S9(5) COMP. The subroutine does a > > READ of a data set into this area. This is where the abend occurs. The > > reason is because the OCCURS DEPENDING ON maximum size is significantly > > larger than what the caller is passing it. And the READ to the 01 is > > trying to pad the entire possible 01 level with blanks. > > > > The problem is how do I describe this to a COBOL programmer who just > > doesn't "get it". He expects COBOL to _not_ pad the "non existent" > > occurrences with blanks. And, if fact, to not even reference this area > > wherein they would have resided, had they existed. I'm just get "deer in > > headlights" looks. I'm not using the correct words, somehow. > > > > -- > > As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. > > > > Maranatha! <>< > > John McKown > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send > > email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
