[open-cobol-list] Re: About the VALUE clause

[Roger While]

"F =".
Fields in the FILE SECTION are not initialized.
It is not required by the Cobol standard and some compilers
will not allow you to reference the fields before the file has been
opened. In fact, some compilers only allocate this area at file open time.
So, that's the "F ="
Correct sequence would be :
OPEN INPUT TESTFILE.
INITIALIZE F-REC.

Now to "L = SU".
It is a programming error to reference a linkage section field
that has not been passed. Normally this would lead to a segmentation
fault.
Correct would be :
 IF NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERS > 0
    DISPLAY "L = " L
 END-IF

Values on an external item are ignored.
(As it is not known at compile time if the item
 has been previously allocated).
There really should be a warning. However,
the generated code is correct.

Roger

Roger