Cobol - Open a bad archive

Author

Open a bad archive

Sossio Li Boni

2004-05-20, 5:30 am

Hi there,
it's my first time here cause i'm italian vb developer.
Nevertheless i've got a question for you all (if you wish reply.)

I have a cobol archive that has 2.7 Mb size,but software that reads this
data
tells that if empty of data.

There is a way to repair broken database? A way to read this file using
another sistem?

Thanx

James J. Gavan

2004-05-20, 6:30 am

Sossio Li Boni wrote:

>Hi there,
>it's my first time here cause i'm italian vb developer.
>Nevertheless i've got a question for you all (if you wish reply.)
>
>I have a cobol archive that has 2.7 Mb size,but software that reads this
>data
>tells that if empty of data.
>
>There is a way to repair broken database? A way to read this file using
>another sistem?
>
>Thanx
>
>
>
>
Are you actually wanting to EXPORT the COBOL file data into CSV files
and then IMPORT into a new database (DBMS/RDBMS)?

That's tricky, even if you know COBOL but don't have the compiler that
the data files were originally created with. There are specific COBOL
tools and some here, who wrote them, will tell you about them. But
firstly you have to play Sherlock Holmes at your end so that we all know
what we are talking about. Have you got a COBOL compiler, which COBOL
compiler and Version # ? I ask about the compiler because some vendors
include a REBUILD tool. As regards your archive data files - a hint -
can you pick out some files names, something like :-

Customer.dat and Customer.idx - same name different extensions. (This
pair indicates an ISAM (Indexed Sequential Access Mode), "DAT" indicates
the data file and "IDX" or perhaps "INX" contains a table of the keys to
the file "DAT". What other file extensions are there - or are there some
with just Customer.dat but no Customer.idx ( or could be no "inx").

Which software were you trying to read the files with - if you tried to
open a COBOL ISAM file with say, Word or Notepad - other than a few
funny characters up front , you probably wont see anything else.

If you can't figure out the COBOL compiler - how old is the data - what
is the date/time stamp for various files.

Jimmy, Calgary AB

Sossio Li Boni

2004-05-22, 3:30 am

I want to thak you for your reply.
I haven't a Cobol compiler.I want to tell you the reason of my request.
I'm a VB developer, and a customer of mine,had a software compiled in Cobol.
Ok,he transferred many data of this software in a iomega zip,and some day
ago
he told me that windows had advice him that periferal was bad or he had a
bad
support.I told him that probably was possible recover lost data in iomega
zip,
and using a recovery software i have recovered all files contained in zip
disk!
But in this group of files, there is one that has 2.6 Mb of size,
nevertheless
it results empty of data.
This is the question! Why? Are there data inside? It's possible to recover?

Thanks again (and excuse my bad bad english... ;-)
Johnny

"James J. Gavan" <jjgavan@shaw.ca> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:0c%qc.544247$Ig.29226@pd7tw2no...
> Sossio Li Boni wrote:
>
> Are you actually wanting to EXPORT the COBOL file data into CSV files
> and then IMPORT into a new database (DBMS/RDBMS)?
>
> That's tricky, even if you know COBOL but don't have the compiler that
> the data files were originally created with. There are specific COBOL
> tools and some here, who wrote them, will tell you about them. But
> firstly you have to play Sherlock Holmes at your end so that we all know
> what we are talking about. Have you got a COBOL compiler, which COBOL
> compiler and Version # ? I ask about the compiler because some vendors
> include a REBUILD tool. As regards your archive data files - a hint -
> can you pick out some files names, something like :-
>
> Customer.dat and Customer.idx - same name different extensions. (This
> pair indicates an ISAM (Indexed Sequential Access Mode), "DAT" indicates
> the data file and "IDX" or perhaps "INX" contains a table of the keys to
> the file "DAT". What other file extensions are there - or are there some
> with just Customer.dat but no Customer.idx ( or could be no "inx").
>
> Which software were you trying to read the files with - if you tried to
> open a COBOL ISAM file with say, Word or Notepad - other than a few
> funny characters up front , you probably wont see anything else.
>
> If you can't figure out the COBOL compiler - how old is the data - what
> is the date/time stamp for various files.
>
> Jimmy, Calgary AB

Frederico Fonseca

2004-05-22, 7:30 am

On Sat, 22 May 2004 06:06:48 GMT, "Sossio Li Boni" <sossio@tin.it>
wrote:
Top posting corrected.

>
>
>"James J. Gavan" <jjgavan@shaw.ca> ha scritto nel messaggio
>news:0c%qc.544247$Ig.29226@pd7tw2no...
>
>I want to thak you for your reply.
>I haven't a Cobol compiler.I want to tell you the reason of my request.
>I'm a VB developer, and a customer of mine,had a software compiled in Cobol.
>Ok,he transferred many data of this software in a iomega zip,and some day
>ago
>he told me that windows had advice him that periferal was bad or he had a
>bad
>support.I told him that probably was possible recover lost data in iomega
>zip,
>and using a recovery software i have recovered all files contained in zip
>disk!
>But in this group of files, there is one that has 2.6 Mb of size,
>nevertheless
>it results empty of data.
>This is the question! Why? Are there data inside? It's possible to recover?
>
>Thanks again (and excuse my bad bad english... ;-)
>Johnny
>
As this is a file recovered from a damaged media then it is possible
that any data that the file had is now behind any salvation.

You should really look at the original files and see if they had any
data.

Also the fact that a file is "big" does not mean it has any data. If
this was for example a temporary "sort" file then it is possible that
all the records have been deleted by the COBOL program as part of the
normal run. Same could apply if this was "a" movements file and these
had just been archived to another file (before they had done the
backup).

And you still need to reply to Jimmy questions, e.g. what are the file
names like, and does your customer remember which COBOL was used!

Frederico Fonseca
ema il: frederico_fonseca at syssoft-int.com

Sponsored Links