>>> On 9/24/2009 at 1:43 PM, in message <[email protected]>, Rick >>> Fochtman <[email protected]> wrote: > ----------------------------------------<snip>------------------------------- > I would hope that I would never do that, either. However, for code that > uses an interface that has been unchanged for 45 years with a 100-byte > limit, I'm not sure I'd be quite that hard on someone whose code copied > the data into a 100-byte buffer using the supplied length. > > To turn it on its head: I wouldn't play you-bet-your-system with this. > The code in most vendor products isn't as well vetted as your own > internal code, and is a lot harder to examine. > > Guns have safeties for a reason; so should a change like this. Whether > it's a new interface (PARMX) or an LE setting that must be explicitly > enabled, there needs to be some informed consent. I can't imagine IBM > being willing to even consider it otherwise -- else a (poorly written) > program that's been happily running for decades could crater production, > and nobody wants that. > ------------------------------------<unsnip>------------------------------------ > Granted that guns have safeties (most of them, anyway). But if you have > to worry about whether it's on or off, you're already doing something > very wrong. > > There's no excuse for knowing what you're doing and PLANNING AHEAD. I've > always coded my programs with the assumption that the parm field might > be as long as 255 bytes, the max that can be described in a single byte.
In Cobol the length parameter for linkage from a JCL PARM is a two-byte field. Is this not the case in assembler? Frank -- Frank Swarbrick Applications Architect - Mainframe Applications Development FirstBank Data Corporation - Lakewood, CO USA P: 303-235-1403 The information contained in this electronic communication and any document attached hereto or transmitted herewith is confidential and intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any examination, use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this communication. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
