On 27 Feb 2014 13:28:03 -0800, in bit.listserv.ibm-main you wrote: >Clark Morris wrote: > ><begin extract> >. . . there should be an IBM supplied service that maps all PLS and/or >Assembler DSCECT to the appropriate mappings in other languages >including COBOL, PL1, C/C++, Rexx and others . . . ></end extract> > >and we should all, I suspect, agree that something of this sort would >be highly desirable. Unfortunately, the obstacles to constructing >such a facility are not, or not chiefly, bureaucratic or financial. >Not all of the data types supported by one or more of these target >languages are supported by all of the others. > >Notoriously---It is under current discussion here---COBOL does not >support explicit bit/boolean variables; nor does it support >extended-precision HFP floating-point values or BFP asnd DFP >floating-point values of any precision. REXX does not support proper >pointers. C knows nothing of current-length-halfword prefixed varying >strings. Etc., etc., ad nauseam.
For COBOL, all that would have to happen is the addition of the USAGES in the 2002 standard. Current-length-halfword strings can be defined as a group level, under it a half-word-length then group-level and under it field-char pic x occurs 1 to maximum-length. This could be part of a justification for implementing all of the USAGES in the 2002 standard. Clark Morris > >Something can probably be done. PL/I, for example, permits a >data-type slot in a structure declaration to be replaced by an >asterisk placeholder, and in COBOL 'FILLER' could be [mis]used for >this purpose. > >The design problem is that of doing what is possible in a target >language without fatally compromising the usefulness of the templates >one produces, and it is a daunting one. > >Moreover, statement-level procedural languages are not >interchangeable. Some are much more powerful, in the sense of being >closer to assembly language in the facilities they make available, >than others. Templates constructed in some target SLPLs are thus >likely to be very much more useful than those constructed in others. > >None of these comments is intended to discourage worthy efforts of >this sort, but the difficulties do need to be appreciated. > >John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
