Re: [open-cobol-list] To correct OpenCOBOL 1.1 Programmers Guide page 5-2 ?

[john Culleton]

On Wed, 7 Mar 2012 22:51:16 +0000 vince <address@hidden>
wrote:

> A small point, unless you are handling a lot of records it is
> easier just to keep them as fixed length with a byte count
> field at the front or some other methodology that does a
> similar job (there is always more than one way to 'skin the
> cat') nuts, do the job. (sorry, too many years in Cobol (49)!!!
> 
> 
> Vince
> 
>   
I always use a subset of COBOL. Things left out of my subset:
Variable length records, Random file access, Report Writer,
Sections in the Procedure division, Nested ifs. 



In the punch card days a sequential file could have a header
record with an id field and containing fixed information followed
by a series of detail records with the same id field followed by
a sequence number. Think an assembly followed by its components or
an invoice header followed by line items. 

The same technique can be used to emulate a variable amount of
data without actually  getting in to variable length records.

I have only used COBOL for 44 years so I bow to Vince's senority
on the subject. 



-- John Culleton