| Robert Wagner 2004-06-29, 8:55 pm |
| Xref: kermit comp.lang.cobol:90687
"Chuck Stevens" <charles.stevens@unisys.com> wrote:
>Since its suitability, functionality and its very presence in context are
>all implementor-defined to start with, this is a great example of a feature
>that *any* implementor can choose to implement as he sees fit, even today.
Pervasive, who specializes in data integration, has huge selection of schemas,
including flavors of Cobol, ISAM and platforms associated with Cobol. See:
http://www.pervasive.com/integratio...ctors/index.asp
There have been many other solutions. What they have in common is the use of a
"schema" describing the data source, and the use of SQL to access it.
Microsoft equips every Windows machine with such a schema language via its "ODBC
Driver for Flat Files". It allows one to describe a flat file, then operate on
it with SQL as though it is a database. Building indexes on the fly, it lets one
join a flat file to another, or to a database, with acceptable speed on files
containing millions of rows. I've found it useful for regression tests and
conversions.
>As for standardizing something like this, I'd be more inclined to suggest a
>COBOL "data dictionary" feature, standardized data-base declaration and
>access syntax (on the list for consideration for a post-2008 standard
>already), or (Heaven forfend!) Object Orientation. Oh, yeah. I forgot.
>That last one's already in the standard.
It was de-facto standardized ten years ago. A schema is a data dictionary. The
access syntax is SQL -- an ANSI Standard language.
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