| Clark F Morris 2008-01-26, 6:56 pm |
| On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:33:22 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
<dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>
>
>"William M. Klein" <wmklein@nospam.netcom.com> wrote in message
>news:1eASi.226775$vo5.15659@fe04.news.easynews.com...
>
>No problem. I didn't expect agreement; neither do I expect everyone to
>understand why I hold such an opinion... :-)
>
>COBOL is *designed* so that you can put data
>
>At this point we diverge a bit. I don't believe it was ORIGINALLY designed
>to do that, but I certainly agree that is how everyone sees it.
>
>I believe it was DESIGNED to validate data in AN fields, much as I have
>described, but I can't prove that and I'm certianly not going to argue it
>:-)
As someone who has used COBOL since May 1963 (RCA 301, after that
varying flavors of IBM COBOL), I have always used it such that input
field were defined as expected and done the test accordingly. In the
case of numerics with sign overpunches, the picture (or SIZE and CLASS
in the Codasyl COBOL 61 I started with) determined how the IF NUMERIC
would work. I assumed the input from cards could be bad and thus
tested it using the descriptions of the fields as I wanted them. Given
that an alphanumeric field could not be easily moved to a signed
field, I doubt that the intent was to have all input in Alphanumeric
fields.
>
>
>Your assumption is right on the button and you saved me posting the solution
>I would have. :-)
>
>That is one reason I believe it to be flawed...
>
>However, if each programmer (site, whatever) does use its own
>
>Or... a vendor supplied component could ensure consistency...
>
>
>Fine. We have no issues. Thanks for a civilized post, Bill.
>
>Pete.
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