Re: To Dashwood

"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:70q3lrFhk7e8U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
foxgrove@xxxxxxx wrote:

we use "NUMERIC SIGN IS TRAILING SEPARATE" in SPECIAL-NAMES
a useful enhancement would be to have a stored option for separate
signs

I've never come across "NUMERIC SIGN" (it sounds redundant to me... :-))
but, yes, the tool does not currently cater for separate signs unless the
clause is applied at the picture level.

In the PICTURE clause is the only place I've ever seen or used SIGN IS
TRAILING [SEPARATE [CHARACTER]]. I've never seen it in SPECIAL-NAMES.

I've recently come across a site where they use INVALID KEY and NOT
INVALID KEY frequently, with both clauses applied to the SAME READ...

The same place uses READ PREVIOUS without a preceding START REVERSED,
expecting the Key to default to the prime key. It works. I have never seen
these constructs used, in 40 years of looking at COBOL and had a great
time devising and generating equivalent SQL for them... :-)

That's easy to explain. Must be, oh, ninety-plus percent of the time the
programmer is either cloning an existing applicaton... which does not use
these relatively new constructs... or the programmer has been around a
while, since before those constructs were supported so he/she has "his/her
way of doing things" which don't use those particular features. (And
there's always the possibility - however remote (!) - the programmer never
even thought about looking at a 'new way' to handle things.)

(In the above, I'm generally not crazy about assuming default behavior,
preferring to be explicit. Over the years I've found that coding what might
be default behavior makes maintenance easier for the next poor schmoe who
has to work on the program.... even - or especially - if that next poor
schmoe is myself).


--
Michael C. Mattias
Tal Systems Inc.
Racine WI
mmattias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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