COBOL/400 LINKAGE SECTION

[baruch]

Hi
000001 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000002 PROGRAM-ID. DEMO.
000003 DATA DIVISION.
000004 WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
000005 01 VAR-P USAGE POINTER.
000006 01 VAR-W PIC X(2).
000007 LINKAGE SECTION.
000008 01 VAR-L PIC X(2).
000009 PROCEDURE DIVISION USING VAR-L.
000010 MAIN1.
000011 SET VAR-P TO ADDRESS OF VAR-L.

How the program can know if some parmeter was sent by the calling program, or not.

When i type in the command line : "CALL DEMO 'ab' "
its end without any errores.
When i type: "CALL DEMO" i have an error:

Argument associated with external or internal parameter not passed.
Function check. MCH0801 unmonitored by .., at statement 11,

thx

Barry

 

[PHV]

Have you tried something like this ?
IF ADDRESS OF VAR-L = NULL

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ222-2244

 

[MuadDubby]

I'm using ACU Cobol on Windows, and in my case, if I try to do [bold]anything[/bold] on a linkage item that was not passed down, the runtime crashes unceremoniously, and tells me that I tried to access a variable that was not sent by the calling pgm.

They do provide, however, an API that I can call to see how many vars were passed down from the parent pgm: C$NARG. If the number matches the number of vars I'm expecting, then I know all's well (although I can't tell if the size, type, and order of the fields is exactly what I'm expecting...)

Check if your particular compiler offers something like this.

.DaviD.

 

[fredericofonseca]

PHV.

that does not work with COBOL/400.

Barry,

that is normal on this COBOL.

There is a way around it, but it is only usefull on some occasions.

see the COBOL/400 Users manual, page 286 onward at

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/iseries/v5r2/ic2924/books/c0918120.pdf

Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com

 

[Dimandja]

Barry,

It looks like the runtime is intercepting the problem, before any code you may put into the called program could do anything about it.

 

[baruch]

First thx to all that tried to help.
in rm/cobol or mf/cobol both in unix/pc its simple,
the independend/calling program gives power to run the code once direct with dilog box & to run at batch mode with default parmeters.
such a common task should have also at as/4000 eviroment.

here a sample at rm/cobol:
....
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 CUSTOMER-N-X.
02 CUSTOMER-N PIC 9(6) VALUE 0.
LINKAGE SECTION.
01 EXTR-PARAM.
02 PARAM-LENGTH PIC 9(4) BINARY.
02 LINKAGE-REC.
03 FILLER PIC X(1) OCCURS 1 TO 6
DEPENDING ON PARAM-LENGTH.
PROCEDURE DIVISION USING EXTR-PARAM.
MAIN SECTION.
0. IF PARAM-LENGTH > 0 MOVE LINKAGE-REC TO CUSTOMER-N-X.

AT MF/COBOL:
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 X PIC X(64) VALUE SPACES.
01 INP-SCREEN.
02 ....
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
MAIN SECTION.
ACCEPT X FROM COMMAND-LINE.
IF X = SPACES PERFORM INPUT-SCREEN THRU EX-INPUT-SCREEN
ELSE MOVE X TO INP-SCREEN.