[open-cobol-list] Stdin/stdout, was Open Cobol Tutorials and other things.

[Roger While]

> I think one of the easiest things to do might just use stdin from a pipe

In the current 0.33 prerelease, OC has implemented a couple
of MF extensions -
SELECT ...   ASSIGN TO KEYBOARD
and
SELECT ...   ASSIGN TO DISPLAY

Both of these automatically set the file type to
LINE SEQUENTIAL.

The KEYBOARD file is set to stdin.
The DISPLAY file is set to stdout.
Of course you can only
OPEN INPUT ... -> the KEYBOARD
and
OPEN OUPUT ... -> the DISPLAY

This means that you can use a Cobol prog as a filter eg.
(Prog as executable)
cat something | MYCOBPROG | whatever
or
(Prog as module)
cat something | cobcrun MYCOBPROG | whatever

Note that this also gives CGI possibilities.

Roger