Re: Dynamic memory in standard COBOL; using large data fields


"clvrmnky" <clvrmnky-uunet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:aR%me.8324$5u4.27086@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> My review of available literature seems to indicate that COBOL-85 does
> not support the notion of dynamic memory. That is, there is no standard
> malloc or calloc style keywords or calls I can make to allocate and grow
> a hunk of memory for an application.

Indeed, ANSI X3.23-1985 provides neither standard syntax nor standard
functions to provide this capability. Nor does ISO/IEC 1989:2002.

The COBOL standard being developed for approval in 2008 includes in the
current draft both "any-length elementary items" and "dynamic-capacity
tables", alone or in combination. This isn't so much based on the C or
Pascal models of the "heap" as it is oriented toward adding true
variable-length capabilities to existing COBOL applications.

-Chuck Stevens


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