Checking for Alphanumeric in COBOL370 1

[Guest_imported]

I know you can have a statement checking "if field not numeric", I tried using the same type statement checking for "not alphanumeric" and I am not able to do so. Maybe the syntax is wrong. Anyone know of a way to check a field for alphanumeric characters. I have look at the field and know there is junk in there. HELP!!!

 

[nontrad]

There is not phrase "not alphanumeric". The three types of data are numeric (9's), alphanumeric (x), and alphabetic (a) - I don't know if anyone uses the last type anymore.

Does your program use the alphabetic type? If not you could just use

if <dataitem> is numeric
<do something>
else
<stmts for all non-numeric >

This is just the reverse of saying
if <dataitem> is not numeric
<non-numeric stmts>
else
<stmts for numeric data>

I don't remember if there's an alpha syntax - hen you could do
if <dataitem> is numeric
<stmts>
else if <dataitem> is alpha
<stmts>
else
<stmts for alphanumeric>

Does this help?

 

[slade]

Hi sajxsn,

The SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph is tailor made for this kind of problem.

It appears in the CONFIGURATION SECTION of the ENVIRONMENT-
DIVISION and is coded something like this:

SPECIAL-NAMES. CLASS your-an-name IS 'A THRU Z 1 THRU 9'.
(if you want to include special chars, you can.)

In your proc div, you code:

IF NOT your-an-name etc.

This approach can be used wherever you need to test a string for the presence of any characters, for example:

If a 1 byte field you're interrogating can only contain one of 15 values that are not contiguous, you can use SPECIAL-
NAMES and validate it with only 1 IF statement.

Hope this helps. Jack.