Gods Of COBOL

Chris Losinger

anybody here know COBOL ? what does this do?

   01 MEMORY-AREA-ONE                           PIC X(2816).

   01  REDEFINES MEMORY-AREA-ONE.          
      05 K01-1 OCCURS 37 TIMES             
               INDEXED BY K01-1-X               PIC 9(04) COMP-5.
      05 K02-1 OCCURS 1369 TIMES           
               INDEXED BY K02-1-X               PIC 9(04) COMP-5.

i thought i understood what redefine and occurs meant, but i can't figure out what this declaration does. (funny answers are welcome!)

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Xiangyang Liu

You may want to call AARP[^], I am pretty sure 90% of cobol programmers are members. :)

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Jim Crafton

That's a program fragment? It looks like the results a program run as opposed to actual syntax. Bizarre. Glad I never had to deal with COBOL. Makes FORTRAN look absolutely svelte in comparison!

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Chris Losinger

:laugh:

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Andy Brummer

I'm guessing that is a buffer for a transfer protocol or a binary file format. I had to deal with such things ages ago when I had to interface with a tandem mainframe. (1369+37)*2 = 2812 so I think it is a bunch of 2 byte integers with 4 bytes left over.

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PIEBALDconsult

Chris Losinger wrote:

MEMORY-AREA-ONE

Nah, I forgot. :-D

Chris Losinger

yeah, it's amazingly verbose. i have to translate a bunch into C/C++ and i'm learning as i go. but this bit makes no sense to me.

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Ian Shlasko

Chris Losinger wrote:

anybody here know COBOL ?

I'd learn it, but... well... Some things just aren't meant to be done without large amounts of illegal drugs, and I'm not into that.

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Chris Losinger

Andy Brummer wrote:

a bunch of 2 byte integers with 4 bytes left over

hmm... yeah, i suppose that could be it. the 'leftover bytes' feels stupid and wrong, but maybe i should just get over that... i'll give it a try!

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modified on Friday, April 9, 2010 4:38 PM

Joe Woodbury

My eyes keep glazing over while trying to read this. I tried sending it through Babel Fish, but it didn't do any good. I'll just guess that it means:

int main()
{
puts("Hello World");
}

Pete OHanlon

Chris Losinger wrote:

yeah, it's amazingly verbose.

Invented by a woman, don't you know? I'm just saying, that's all.

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Pete OHanlon

As far as I can tell, it means that the chances of you using COBOL to stop the nuclear countdown in 24 is going to be slim. Jack Bauer: "Dammit Chloe. I need aerial surveilance now." Chloe: "I'm trying Jack. I'm still only halfway through the declaration section."

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Jeremy Falcon

Might be worthwhile running it through a COBOL to C translator. Then maybe you can make sense of the C code.

Jeremy Falcon

Douglas Troy

This is nothing more than a string (alphanumeric) 2816 characters

Chris Losinger wrote:

01 MEMORY-AREA-ONE PIC X(2816).

that second section

Chris Losinger wrote:

01 REDEFINES MEMORY-AREA-ONE. 05 K01-1 OCCURS 37 TIMES INDEXED BY K01-1-X PIC 9(04) COMP-5. 05 K02-1 OCCURS 1369 TIMES INDEXED BY K02-1-X PIC 9(04) COMP-5.

Pic 9(04) COMP-5 is a 4 byte numeric stored in machine independent format Essentially, those two lines redefine the space originally defined by MEMORY-AREA-ONE into two blocks of unsigned 16-bit integers. I cannot recall what the INDEXED allows you to do anymore ... Not sure any of that helps you ... [edit] You might also considering hitting up the COBOL User Groups[^] for help with this, and/or other COBOL related issues you might have. Just a thought.

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modified on Friday, April 9, 2010 5:51 PM

Luc Pattyn

Hi Chris, you are aware there are a couple of .NET COBOL compilers around? you might be lucky and have a look at the IL your source generates; and reflector might be willing to show you equivalent C# or VB.NET code. And maybe you don't need to translate it after all, just run it... :)

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CPallini

No cookie for you: COBOL is the only computer language invented by the Etrurians. :)

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CPallini

Luc Pattyn wrote:

you are aware there are a couple of .NET COBOL compilers around?

Their authors should be flamed, immediately. :rolleyes:

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Steve Mayfield

Isn't that part of the start up code for Cylons...oh wait, that's "Lords of Kobol" :laugh:

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modified on Friday, April 9, 2010 5:55 PM

martin_hughes

 01 SORRY-CHRIS                                          PIC YOUR-NAME(LANCELOT).
 
 01 I-DON'T-KNOW.
   05 IDK OCCURS 100 TIMES
          INDEXED BY I-REALLY-DON'T-KNOW                 PIC A-COLOUR(BLUE).
   05 IDK-2 OCCURS 1520 TIMES
          INDEXED BY WHAT-IS-THE-CAPITAL-OF-ASSYRIA      I-DON'T-KNOW-THAT(NONE).

Output is apparently "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

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Steve Mayfield · modified on Friday, April 9, 2010 4:38 PM

4 bytes left over Maybe the 4 extra bytes are for the array index variables (K01-1-X & K02-1-X)

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