On 12/2/2010 2:15 PM, Frank Swarbrick wrote:
On 12/2/2010 at 1:13 PM, in message<4cf7fdef.40...@trainersfriend.com>, Steve
Comstock<st...@trainersfriend.com> wrote:
I think many (not all) of the LE services are useful. For a COBOL
shop, the ability to dynamically request storage (no need to have
an Assembler subroutine) and the ability to write condition handlers
in COBOL (no need for Assembler STAE or ESTAE routines) seem to be
attractive.
I am in agreement. Though I have to admit I'd prefer that Enterprise
COBOL be upgraded to support many of these things. Certainly the
latest COBOL standard supports dynamic memory allocation with the
ALLOCATE and FREE statements. And some form of exception handling,
though I'm not sure how it would fit in with LE. I can barely spell
STAE, much less make use of it. :-)
Well, I have to say the COBOL developers ate their own dogfood,
as the saying goes: the XML PARSE structure was implemented
under the covers using condition handling.
On the other hand, the truth is I don't see many shops using the
CEE callable services. I think part of the problem is lack of
awareness (fixable by training, of course). Another part is lack
of leadership on trying new things.
No doubt. Which is why I'm trying to take a bit of initiative here.
Disgressing slightly, I have to admit that one of the things that
kept me from using LE services in the past was the need to handle
the feedback code. In VSE all of the documentation specifically
states "COBOL programs must provide the feedback code parameter in
each call to an LE/VSE callable service." What's really frustrating
is I don't even think it's true! There is no OMITTED keyword in
COBOL for VSE/ESA, but you can simulate it:
LINKAGE SECTION.
77 LS-OMITTED POINTER.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
set address of OMITTED to NULL
call "ceemsg" using CTOK CEEMSG LS-OMITTED
How strange!
Using LS-OMITTED in this way instead of the OMITTED keyword appears
to work the same way on z/OS, so I'd hope that VSE would work the
same way. Ergh. Can someone on VSE try this out and see if it works?
Oh well, ten years late but I think we can get some good use out of LE.
Frank
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
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