Re: How proprietary is the "COBOL file system"

On Oct 1, 7:59 am, Richard <rip...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 30, 8:29 pm, "Pete Dashwood"



<dashw...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything.""Robert" <n...@xxxxxx> wrote in message

news:a8huf3ppubdf9pd0gmtuiiv3s5efn19r0b@xxxxxxxxxx

On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:18:10 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashw...@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.

Let's assume you have a Fujitsu program that wants to access Micro Focus
files.

1. Write a file access program, compile under MF to a .dll, call it from
Fujitsu.

2. The MF extfh functions are well defined. Call them directly from
Fujitsu.

3. Use ODBC.

The requirement is to access around 100 Fujitsu ISAM files. ODBC is not an
option. (I don't believe they provide a driver for their ISAM anyway, and
even if they did, it would be too unwieldy to set up every file on ODBC. I
do use ODBC for access to RDB and find it very useful, especially for moving
RDBMS)

Fujitsu on Linux provides a Callable File Handler that can be called
from C (or compatible) to access all Fujitsu files. It should be
possible to call this from MF.

This is also available in Windows, see 'File Access Subroutine Guide'.

Further to that it may be possible to write an 'extfh' for MF that
filters out particular files and calls the Fujitsu file handler so
that MF can transparently access both file systems.


Currently, I generate a COBOL program to read the ISAM and write the
Database. This is a reasonable solution but has led to the (now solved)
problem of having to remotely Batch compile COBOL (covered in another
thread).

It was precisely because I have no easy way to access the ISAM from anything
OTHER THAN COBOL that I had to go for a COBOL generation, and that in turn,
made me think about the "illusion" of cross platform standardization that
COBOL is supposed to provide...

This "closed" COBOL file system has been one of the major contributors to
the decline of COBOL. I remember certain programmers feeling very smug in
the mid-80s because the corporate data resource was (apparently) locked into
COBOL and this therefore guaranteed COBOL's future. (I wonder where they are
now...)

Thanks for your response.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."


.

Relevant Pages

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