Re: C-preprocessor for COBOL?

From: William M. Klein (wmklein_at_nospam.netcom.com)
Date: 07/06/04 

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 17:45:38 GMT

Herwig,
   I used to hear "urban legends" of IBM mainframe shops where they used the
PL/I "macro processor" to preprocess COBOL code. There was also a 3rd party
"vendor product" called META-COBOL which did something similar.

Personally, I never heard of the C preprocessor being used that way (and I would
think that during my years at Micro Focus, I would have heard of this if it was
done). OTOH, maybe someone did do such things somewhere. <G> 

-- 
Bill Klein
 wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
"Herwig Huener" <Herwig.Huener@fujitsu-siemens.com> wrote in message
news:ccb8qe$et$1@nntp.fujitsu-siemens.com...
> 2004-07-05 12:00:00 MEST
>
> This is not supposed to be a joke.
>
> The C-preprocessor which can be used quite
> independent of C, at least in the Unix-Environment,
> can be used for other languages than C - it can
> even be used for poetry and such.
>
> Now, in the old days, when COBOL did not have
> conditional compilation, you could, for instance,
> "misuse" the C-preprocessor to have conditional
> compilation. Also, at least some of the other
> capabilities of the C-preprocessor could also be
> used, if one dares to do so.
>
> Does anyone know, whether there are/were serious
> projects where this was regulary done?
>
> Herwig
>
>