Re: COBOL

From: Chuck Stevens (charles.stevens_at_unisys.com)
Date: 12/23/04

  • Next message: Binyamin Dissen: "Re: COBOL" 
    Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 08:53:44 -0800

    "Robert Wagner" <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote in message
    news:137ks05k9jnticqq4qihfq5obkmlri1lam@4ax.com...

    > Device-specific assignments are obsolete. Nowadays, ASSIGN statements
    > take three forms:
    >
    > 1. SELECT file ASSIGN TO '/path/file'
    >
    > 2. SELECT file ASSIGN TO data-name (which contains /path/file)
    >
    > 3. SELECT file ASSIGN TO ddname (environment variable or JCL
    > containing /path/file)

    Ummm.... In what context? Although exactly *what* a file may be assigned
    to is still defined by the implementor, ISO/IEC 1989:2002 specifically
    changed the terminology for the non-literal case from "implementor-name-1"
    to "device-name".

    While IBM may have favored such intutively-clear device-names as
    "SYS00C-UR-2540R-S" at one time, Unisys MCP-based systems have gone more
    toward such unfathomable mnemonics as "READER" and "DISK" in this context,
    believing that more specific assignation than that is rightly more the
    purview of the operating environment than of the COBOL program itself.

        -Chuck Stevens

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