| William M. Klein 2007-07-06, 6:55 pm |
| "Rick Smith" <ricksmith@mfi.net> wrote in message
news:138sievlpd5cu04@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "Karl Kiesel" <Karl.Kiesel@fujitsu-siemens.com> wrote in message
> news:f6lapc$gha$1@nntp.fujitsu-siemens.com...
<much snippage>
> I wrote that, currently, a data-item may be made variable-length
> by insertion of a delimiter. Under 2002, the source element
> referencing an ANY LENGTH item must know what
> delimiter (or other means) was used. Under the draft standard,
> the delimiter is explicit by the DELIMITED phrase or defaults
> to X"00" for pic X, or X"0000" for pic N. With this change,
> the LENGTH function may be used to find the length of an
> ANY LENGTH item. The 2002 standard leaves it to the
> user to calculate the length. [The LENGTH function also now
> works with ANY LENGTH PREFIXED items.] Thus,
> under the draft standard ANY LENGTH items become true
> variable-length items.
>
I won't guarantee this, but it my impression that at the latest WG4 meeting
there was direction (partially in response from J4) to DRMATICALLY change the
"ANY LENGTH" (prefixed and delimited) as defined in the current draft of the
next Standard. I would NOT "count on" what is in the (current) draft ever
seeing the "light of day" in a Standard - or an implemetnation.
NOTE:
The 01-level in Linkage Section of some - not all - entitities that was
available in the '02 Standard will probably remain - but may (or may not) be
made optional.
--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
|