Syntax - "Short and sweet"

From: William M. Klein (wmklein_at_nospam.netcom.com)
Date: 03/31/04 

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 01:12:25 GMT

Given all the other notes and threads, I thought that others may miss the
following quote from the 2002 Standard which I included in response to another
note,

"There are rules in standard COBOL that are not identified as general formats or
syntax rules, but nevertheless specify elements that are syntactically
distinguishable. This warning mechanism shall indicate violations of such rules.
For elements not specified in general formats or in explicit syntax rules, it is
left to the implementor's judgement to determine what is syntactically
distinguishable."

Please read and understand (as far as STANDARD COBOL goes) that last part which
says,

"it is left to the implementor's judgement to determine what is syntactically
distinguishable."

Hopefully, this will terminate any discussion about what the Standard "requires"
or "allows". If others want to discuss what "syntax rules" are/mean in a
NON-STANDARD context for COBOL, please feel free to do so. I assume their
sources and references to support almost all of the views that have been stated
in the recent threads. As long as it is clear that we are not talking about
ANSI/ISO Standard COBOL, then I am totally comfortable (personally) with anyone
saying that something is or is not a "valid" syntax error. 

-- 
Bill Klein
 wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com

Relevant Pages

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