On Thu, 13 Oct 2016 12:39:30 -0400, Tony Harminc wrote: > >... But the ABO product is certainly not just translating >individual old instructions into newer ones. Rather, it is surely >identifying COBOL paradigms based on some kind of pattern matching, >and then retranslating those COBOLy things into modern machine code. > If ABO is guaranteed (we don't know that) not to impair the semantics of any machine code, even not generated by COBOL, then the worst it can do is to pass machine code unmodified. But sometimes part of that code might match a COBOL cliché and be optimized.
There are pitfalls. With COBOL-generated code it might be easier to distinguish between instructions and data. Or a non-COBOL compiler might branch into a CSECT at an offset from a declared ENTRY. (I did that, once, in my younger, less prudent days.) -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
