Not an error on 4.2, could these be considered IDENTIFICATION DIVISION comment
entries?
>>-+-IDENTIFICATION-+--DIVISION.--PROGRAM-ID.------------------->
| (1) |
'-ID-------------'
>--+-program-name-+--------------------------------------------->
| (1) |
'-literal------'
>--+---------------------------------------+-------------------->
'-DATE-COMPILED.--+-------------------+-'
| .---------------. |
| V | |
'---comment-entry-+-'
The comment-entry in any of the optional paragraphs may be any combination of
characters from the character set of the computer. Do not confuse the
comment-entry with a comment line. (The latter is indicated by a slash or
asterisk in the indicator area.) The comment-entry is written in Area B on one
or more lines. The SEU Syntax Checker, however, requires that the first
sentence begin on the same line as the paragraph header.
Comment-entries serve only as documentation; they do not affect the meaning of
the program. A hyphen in the indicator area (column 7) is not permitted in
comment-entries.
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Mills [mailto:charl...@mcn.org]
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2012 11:41 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Is this valid COBOL syntax?
Is anyone a COBOL syntax expert? Is the following valid? (It's not a trick
question: there are no obscure PARM= options and nothing remarkable precedes
the fragment below.) It's not an academic question. The code is accepted
without error by the IBM Enterprise COBOL compiler V4.1, but not by a
proprietary pre-processor, and I'm trying to figure out if the code should
change or if the preprocessor is in error. Changing the code is not trivial:
multiple programs like this, corporate change control processes, etc., etc.
I think it's invalid, that the '.' strings are syntactically-invalid character
literals. Am I missing something?
Starting hint: The REMARKS paragraph heading is only a * comment and not
syntactically significant (I think).
Best viewed in a fixed-width font like Courier. FYI if you can't view it that
way, the leading quote in lines 20-23 is in CC 12 and the trailing quote in CC
72.
Card columns:
1 2 3 6 7
1234567890123456789012345678901...0123456789012
00020 *REMARKS.
00021 '******************* ************'
00022 '* VARIOUS COMMENT-LIKE TEXT *'
00023 '* VARIOUS COMMENT-LIKE TEXT *'
Thanks for your help.
Charles
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