Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

As part of a SUM operation there is the dropping of duplicate keys. FIELDS=NONE on SUM just does that part, as there is nothing to SUM. If you specify something to SUM, it is summed, and the other duplicates of the first record are still dropped. If you need something which SELECT provides easily wh...

I'm using GnuCOBOL 2.0. You should use at least GnuCOBOL 1.1 (current release). OpenCOBOL is no longer supported as that. When I run your program I get the expected (for GnuCOBOL) results, which is if I enter a single digit, I get seven blanks followed by the digit for the numeric-edited field and e...

If your data is "text" then any non-text value will do.

If you data contains packed-decimal fields, then chose any non-text whose hex-representation starts with A-F.

If your data contains binary fields, then you'd have to check, because any bit-combination could exist.

Well, no, it doesn't work. Use a length of 10. Sit down with a pencil and paper and work out what happens with all spaces, one character plus nine spaces, five characters (plus space), nine (plus one space) and ten characters (plus no space).

In the ISPF Editor: NUMBER ON COBOL UNNUM NUMBER <back to previous state, if necessary> That will clobber anything in columns one to six. Not a lot of people know about NUMBER ON COBOL, so just tossing it in. I have seen columns one to six used for various things, never really with much point. You c...

OPTIMIZE is not going to help with "indentation".

More memory than 77s. I don't see anything else which makes much sense. An 01 takes more (or less) memory than another 01? Certainly possible, even wildly common.

Also, for fun: Which "takes more memory" now?

Seven 77's of PIC X used to take less space than your seven 05s, because you have one slack byte :-) Now they take the same amount of space as seven 01-levels of PIC X (56 bytes). The question is also making a link between storage used by 77- and 01-levels and tables (OCCURS), which makes no sense b...

Yes, both are invoked by the EXEC statement, but different formats of the EXEC statement, which do different things. A PROC contains JCL. A PGM is executable. PROCLIB tells the system where to look for (additional) PROCs. STEPLIB tells the system where to look for (additional) PGMs (executable progr...

Generally, work datasets aren't used outside utilities and products. Where they are used, they are used for specific purposes, and the technical staff responsible for those utilities and products will know how to define/optimise their use. For SORT it is mostly best to use dynamic allocation rather ...

You find the instruction which failed. You find what data is being referenced in that instruction. If only one piece of data is involved (for instance the instruction is a ZAP (Zero and Add Packed), or a CVB (Convert to Binary) then you know it is bad. If two pieces of data are involved, establish w...

Yes, Chuck. It has to be with a single file, SORTIN01 replacing SORTIN. Use of EQUALS if required to preserve order (if "base" record details are significant and the first record is wanted for the base). The OUTFIL reporting features can also be used, REMOVECC,NODETAIL and SECTIONS with TR...

Interviewers seem to think it is a question which separates the COBOL Men from the COBOL Boys. There is no practical benefit in knowing the answer.

Although the question can be easily located by search-engineing, I'd guess there are also wrong answers out there.

You can also locate information on Picture Strings in the online help. Try FIND, Specifying the character string.

Are you asking about a SORT, or some other specific utility, or generally?

Do you mean the JCL for compiling these, or running them?

Five minutes is excessive. Nope, I don't mean that. Five minutes is excessively tight. It is a resource-saving thing (there's lots of debate about what is actually saved). You should request, through your boss, a review of this. With five minutes, I'd suspect there are so many log-offs (forced) and ...

When printers used of have a fixed number of columns on a page, one of the standards (for Mainframes anyway) was 132 columns. If you notice your 133, you have the extra byte for your control-code, It is slightly better to use FBA (or FBM, look it up) as "some things" automatically distingu...

In (OpenCOBOL)/GnuCOBOL the ACCEPT takes account of the field definition, so acts appropriately, even for "edited" PICtures. In Enterprise COBOL, the field on ACCEPT is treated as alpha-numeric, no matter how it is defined. There isn't even really space-padding, because the spaces come fro...

By just looking at the program source it is impossible to tell whether a CALL will be static or dynamic for a CALL "literal" because it is a compiler option which determines that.