That may well be true, but use of C stdio then requires POSIX mode, which makes it not suitable for a *generalized* file handler which might, for instance, need to be invoked in a totally non-LE environment.
I would agree with "hundreds of lines" but not thousands. QSAM support only takes a few hundred, even including MOVE/LOCATE and UPDATE modes (and a lot of that can be explanatory comments for the next maintainer). Maybe by the time the BSAM/BDAM/VSAM support was done you would have a thousand or more lines, but not I think two or three thousand. Depending on how many bells and whistles you want to include of course. As usual, YMMV. Peter -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of David Crayford Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 12:53 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Cobol Help On 22/08/2017 11:59 PM, Farley, Peter x23353 wrote: > In that case the assembler I/O modules handled any errors that they could > (SYNAD, etc.) and passed back error code(s) and messages to the COBOL > interface module to pass up to the caller, simulating COBOL FILE STATUS and > VSAM error variable where possible. > > Metal C might be a better choice for more generalized file I/O handling, one > small step above assembler but with all assembler facilities available. The best generalized file handling I've seen on z/OS is the C stdio fopen() and friends (by a country mile). That one factory function can handle all the standard access methods: BSAM, QSAM, VSAM (KSDS, RRDS, ESDS), hiperspaces and Unix files. It's a thing of beauty. To code the equivalent functionality in Metal/C would take hundreds if not thousands of lines of code. -- This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
