[Default] On 23 Jul 2017 07:10:50 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main [email protected] (Steve Thompson) wrote:
>The use of INITIALIZE on a Linkage section element was the whole >point of my posting. > >I know of no way to tell, from within a COBOL program, if the >parm info is valid. A called program assumes that the storage it >has defined is what has been passed. > >This is why IBM is telling people to check their calling programs >and called programs to make sure they agree on the storage being >passed between them. (Migration manual, whose number I have >forgotten, but was a -00). If you are talking about a PARM on an EXEC statement, I always checked for the length (first half word, zero if no PARM passed) before using it in my COBOL and Assembler programs. If this is being called from another program then whatever checks you make to be sure things are as expected still apply. The main use I can see of this is for storage obtained and addressed using a pointer. Clark Morris > >Regards, >Steve Thompson > > >On 07/23/2017 07:47 AM, Clark Morris wrote: >> [Default] On 22 Jul 2017 18:31:37 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main >> [email protected] (Steve Thompson) wrote: >> >>> And what happens when the program gets called with a "zero" parm? >> >> Unless an INITIALIZE statement were issued for that field, nothing >> would happen. The VALUE clause on a data item in the FELE SECTION and >> LINKAGE SECTION is used in conjunction with the INITIALIZE statement >> and not to se an initial value. >> >> Clark Morris >>> >>> One would hope that it gets a S0C4-4 for attempting to initialize >>> PSA, because if it manages to pickup a random value to base that >>> 01, who knows what gets overlaid. >>> >>> But then, I don't have access to COBOL6.2 yet so I can test this. >>> >>> Regards, >>> Steve Thompson ><SNIPPAGE> > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
