Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
Eighth Edition (March 1993) | This edition replaces and makes obsolete the previous edition, | SC26-4047-06. Technical changes for this edition are summarized | under"Summary of Changes" in topic FRONT_3 and are indicated by a | vertical bar to the left of the change. | This edition applies to Release 4 of VS COBOL II, Program Numbers | 5668-958 (Compiler and Library with Debug), 5688-023 (Compiler and | Library), and 5688-022 (Library only), and to any subsequent releases | until otherwise indicated in new editions or technical newsletters. | Make sure you are using the correct edition for the level of the | product. Order publications through your IBM representative or the IBM branch office serving your locality. Publications are not stocked at the address below. A form for readers' comments is provided at the back of this publication. If the form has been removed, address your comments to: IBM Corporation, Department J58 P.O. Box 49023 San Jose, CA, 95161-9023 United States of America And what a change in attitude from that Comment Form to today! Contrast what it says with the attitude today toward customer input: Please use this form to tell us what you think about the accuracy, clarity, organization, and appearance of this manual. Any suggestions you have for its improvement will be welcome. Charles On Sun, 21 May 2023 21:34:49 +, Frank Swarbrick wrote: >What was the release date on that? > -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
What was the release date on that? From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List on behalf of Charles Mills Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2023 1:46 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question) VS COBOL II Release 4 -- change bars on the doc: x LENGTH OF Special Register x The LENGTH OF special register contains the number of bytes used by an x identifier. x LENGTH OF creates an implicit special register whose content is equal x to the current byte length of the data item referenced by the x identifier. x Note: For DBCS data items, each character occupies 2 bytes of x storage. ... and more Charles On Sun, 21 May 2023 00:51:33 +, Frank Swarbrick wrote: >At least VS COBOL II, as far as I can remember. This is when CICS added the >COBOL2 translate option to allow the LENGTH argument to be omitted, since it >used LENGTH OF under the covers. >Also, it's called a "special register" rather than built-in function; though >now there is also an intrinsic function LENGTH, as well as BYTE-LENGTH. -- 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
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
Well, various folks have convinced me that I missed this back when I looked for it! I have a hazy memory of asking someone-not this list-about it and being told "No" but that might be wishful thinking. Hmm, it *had* been a while; I looked at the source, found this comment: *Given two COBOL data elements, return an integer *containing the difference between them. This is *necessary because COBOL does not provide a way to *do so, and users need this to calculate offsets *between fields in a COBOL copybook So it's not quite "length of" but surely one could have calculated it using lengths. The actual function is, unsurprisingly, quite short: ten lines of code, most of it linkage, only four lines of actual "do it" code. Anyway, thanks for all the replies! I do remember feeling kind of disbelieving that this wasn't possible using native COBOL. -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
Dated March 12, 1993 On Sun, 21 May 2023 14:46:10 -0500, Charles Mills wrote: >VS COBOL II Release 4 -- change bars on the doc: > >x LENGTH OF Special Register >x The LENGTH OF special register contains the number of bytes used by an >x identifier. > >x LENGTH OF creates an implicit special register whose content is equal >x to the current byte length of the data item referenced by the >x identifier. > >x Note: For DBCS data items, each character occupies 2 bytes of >x storage. > >... and more > >Charles -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
VS COBOL II Release 4 -- change bars on the doc: x LENGTH OF Special Register x The LENGTH OF special register contains the number of bytes used by an x identifier. x LENGTH OF creates an implicit special register whose content is equal x to the current byte length of the data item referenced by the x identifier. x Note: For DBCS data items, each character occupies 2 bytes of x storage. ... and more Charles On Sun, 21 May 2023 00:51:33 +, Frank Swarbrick wrote: >At least VS COBOL II, as far as I can remember. This is when CICS added the >COBOL2 translate option to allow the LENGTH argument to be omitted, since it >used LENGTH OF under the covers. >Also, it's called a "special register" rather than built-in function; though >now there is also an intrinsic function LENGTH, as well as BYTE-LENGTH. -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
On Sun, 21 May 2023 18:56:39 +, Seymour J Metz wrote: >The Initiator calls it with a 32-bit PLIST, so below the bar and if you invoke >it with CALL you must be aware that it is a main program and do likewise. > >WEe hates it, precious, we hates it. > It should have been easy enough for the initiator to query the AMODE and provide a 31-bit or 64-bit list accordingly. This feels like a design blunder resulting from haste to deliver. The sort that's orders of magnitude more costly to recover from in GA than in development. I could even envision a bizarre compatibility accommodation in which all the parameter values are below-the-line and bits 32-63 of GR1 address a 31-bit plist and the entire GR1 addresses a 64-bit plist referring to the same below-the-line valuse/ -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
The Initiator calls it with a 32-bit PLIST, so below the bar and if you invoke it with CALL you must be aware that it is a main program and do likewise. WEe hates it, precious, we hates it. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Paul Gilmartin [042bfe9c879d-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu] Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2023 2:06 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question) On Sun, 21 May 2023 16:51:18 +, Seymour J Metz wrote: >That's not a CALL convention. The primary use case for the halfword length is >programs that can be invoked with EXEC PGM=. ... >I assume that you're talking AMODE24 or AMODE31; for AMODE64 things are >different. > If a program object is marked AMODE 64, does EXEC PGM= cause it to be entered with a 64-bit PLIST? May CALL invoke it with arguments above the bar or must the caller copy arguments to below the bar? -- gil -- 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
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
32-bit PLIST, and the AMODE64 main program is responsible for clearing the VL bit before using the address. BAD. For anything else, the PLIST is 64 bits wide, there is no VL bit and the last pointer is followed by -1 (all fox Fox). Parameters from AMODE64 to AMODE64 may be above the bar. But if you want to pass it to AMODE31, ... -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Paul Gilmartin [042bfe9c879d-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu] Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2023 2:06 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question) On Sun, 21 May 2023 16:51:18 +, Seymour J Metz wrote: >That's not a CALL convention. The primary use case for the halfword length is >programs that can be invoked with EXEC PGM=. ... >I assume that you're talking AMODE24 or AMODE31; for AMODE64 things are >different. > If a program object is marked AMODE 64, does EXEC PGM= cause it to be entered with a 64-bit PLIST? May CALL invoke it with arguments above the bar or must the caller copy arguments to below the bar? -- gil -- 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
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
On Sun, 21 May 2023 16:51:18 +, Seymour J Metz wrote: >That's not a CALL convention. The primary use case for the halfword length is >programs that can be invoked with EXEC PGM=. ... >I assume that you're talking AMODE24 or AMODE31; for AMODE64 things are >different. > If a program object is marked AMODE 64, does EXEC PGM= cause it to be entered with a 64-bit PLIST? May CALL invoke it with arguments above the bar or must the caller copy arguments to below the bar? -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
That's not a CALL convention. The primary use case for the halfword length is programs that can be invoked with EXEC PGM=. For most subroutines, the entries in the PLIST point directly at the parameter or point to a language-specifc control block of some kind, e.g., a locator/descriptor for PLI CHAR variables. Always setting the end-of-list flag is a good habit to get into. I assume that you're talking AMODE24 or AMODE31; for AMODE64 things are different. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Paul Gilmartin [042bfe9c879d-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ua.edu] Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2023 12:14 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question) On Sun, 21 May 2023 08:02:59 +0300, Binyamin Dissen wrote: > >Curious how you used a subroutine. It only worked for fields in a structure >where you passed the address of the field and the next field and it subtracted >the addresses? > >Was there a way to make COBOL pass a dope vector with descriptions of the >field? > Does COBOL not follow the CALL or ADDRESS LINKMVS convention where R1 addresses an array of fullwords where each addresses a halfword length followed by the value? -- gil -- 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
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
On Sun, 21 May 2023 08:02:59 +0300, Binyamin Dissen wrote: > >Curious how you used a subroutine. It only worked for fields in a structure >where you passed the address of the field and the next field and it subtracted >the addresses? > >Was there a way to make COBOL pass a dope vector with descriptions of the >field? > Does COBOL not follow the CALL or ADDRESS LINKMVS convention where R1 addresses an array of fullwords where each addresses a halfword length followed by the value? -- gil -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
On Sat, 20 May 2023 19:09:03 -0400 Phil Smith III wrote: :>Since when does COBOL have LENGTH OF? I looked for this about 12 years ago and didn't find it, wrote a tiny and trivial assembler function to do the same thing. Did I miss it, or is it new since then? :>Not that the code has needed any support, but I'm glad that if it ever becomes an issue, I can say "Use the BIF instead"! Curious how you used a subroutine. It only worked for fields in a structure where you passed the address of the field and the next field and it subtracted the addresses? Was there a way to make COBOL pass a dope vector with descriptions of the field? -- Binyamin Dissen http://www.dissensoftware.com Director, Dissen Software, Bar & Grill - Israel -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
Re: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
At least VS COBOL II, as far as I can remember. This is when CICS added the COBOL2 translate option to allow the LENGTH argument to be omitted, since it used LENGTH OF under the covers. Also, it's called a "special register" rather than built-in function; though now there is also an intrinsic function LENGTH, as well as BYTE-LENGTH. One thing that LENGTH OF will do that the others won't is allow you to get the length of a table element without subscripting it, e.g. 01 my-table. 05 my-entry occurs 10 times. 10 me-one pic x(8). 10 me-two pic s9(9) comp. call 'something' using my-table, content length of my-entry The LENGTH OF special register and the BYTE-LENGTH function both return the number of bytes of a field. The LENGTH function will return the number of "characters" for both USAGE DISPLAY and USAGE NATIONAL, meaning LENGTH OF/BYTE-LENGTH function for a PIC N(10) returns 20, while LENGTH function returns 10. For the new UTF-8 it seems to do its own thing that I have not researched yet. But so far it returns 10 for all 3, even though it allocates 40 bytes for a PIC U(10). I'm sure there is some logic behind it. -Original Message- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of Phil Smith III Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2023 5:09 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question) Since when does COBOL have LENGTH OF? I looked for this about 12 years ago and didn't find it, wrote a tiny and trivial assembler function to do the same thing. Did I miss it, or is it new since then? Not that the code has needed any support, but I'm glad that if it ever becomes an issue, I can say "Use the BIF instead"! -- 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
LENGTH OF in COBOL (was: ISPF HILITE Question)
Since when does COBOL have LENGTH OF? I looked for this about 12 years ago and didn't find it, wrote a tiny and trivial assembler function to do the same thing. Did I miss it, or is it new since then? Not that the code has needed any support, but I'm glad that if it ever becomes an issue, I can say "Use the BIF instead"! -- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
