Re: How proprietary is the "COBOL file system"

On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:18:10 +1300, "Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Can anyone tell me if MicroFocus COBOL can read Fujitsu ISAM files, and vice
versa? What about Realia?

Obviously, at the source code level (SELECT and FD/01) the code is
compatible, but what about object level?

Is there a single PC ISAM system, or do all the COBOL vendors have their own
proprietary indexed system which is delivered with their COBOL compiler?

I know what I THINK the answer is, but would be gald to hear any other
facts/opinions about this.


All three are proprietary.

On Windows, Micro Focus uses its own External File System (extfs). On Unix, extfs is
available but the default is C-ISAM, which is owned by Informix, which is owned by IBM.
There has been bad blood between the companies in recent years. MF refers support
questions to Informix. They want you to use extfs.

I don't know about Fujitsu. I assume it's proprietary.

Realia is very proprietary. Marc Sokol said they spent more time developing the file
systsem than the compiler. In the MS-DOS era, it was blindingly fast.

The most likely place to find interoperability is in ODBC drivers.

.