COBOL....maintenance programs

[marionetteI]

i had this question on a test and dont know the answer....

All of the following are usually considered to be maintenance programs except

A add
B print
C delete
D change
E inquire

any suggestions?

 

[slade]

Hi Mette,

The traditional file maintenance functions are:

Add a rec, change it, delete it, inquire on it.

I hope they used "file maintenance" and not
just "maintenance".

Regards, Jack.

 

[marionetteI]

sorry to disappoint that was how it was wrote by the professor

 

[MarcLodge]

Hi Mette and Jack,
I've always got cross about the traditional definition of file maintenance functions and now's the time to get it off my chest....... If my wife asks me to perform some household maintenance, she expects me to add, update or delete some aspect of the family home. She'd be pretty fed up to return and find that I'd done nothing other just look at it (inquire). Personally I feel that the TRUE answer is Inquire and Print because they do not maintain. But I look forward to your opinions

 

[marionetteI]

the only thing i can say to that is...do whatever your wife tells you to do...lol, there is just nothing tradional about what a woman wants...

 

[StephenJSpiro]

Your professor is a fool. Save these posts, and when the course is over, send them to the chairman of the department. If s/he IS the Chairman of the department send them to the President of the Coillege/University.

NONE of the 5 items are "programs". They are operations which can be in different programs or the same program.

Stephen J Spiro
Member, ANSI COBOL Standards Committee

 

[sln007]

Hi M,

I immediately selected "print".
I assumed that "maintenance" meant the ability to alter or perform maintenance on a file or database.
"print" is the only function in the list which doesn't have an ability to change data.

Nice question though.

 

[MarcLodge]

Sorry sln, if you inquire, you inquire, you do not change the data. Inquire functions are (or should be) read only by their nature, and perform no updates. The reason that Inquire is generally considered as part of a maintenance funtion is that it leads into add/delete/update - it's difficult to update if you haven't inquired.

 

[RonaldB]

Some method for forming test cases formulated it as:
CRUD (Create - Replace - Update - Delete).
Any inquiries (like print...) aren't strickly maintenance functions, although often needed for at least two of the others.

 

[RonaldB]

Oops!
Er...

Regards,
Ronald.

P.S. I'm used to having a fixed signature on some other forums.

 

[slade]

Why are we fighting over the answers? My quarrel is with the instructor's question.

It's ambiguous and it doesn't demonstrate understanding of anything significant.

Jack

 

[RonaldB]

Jack,

Quote: "Why are we fighting over the answers?" end quote;

just for the fun of it... --------
Regards,
Ronald.

 

[slade]

AMEN!!

 

[ceh4702]

Read your book. This is typically a textbook question that has nothing to do with reality or production work. While we write programs to do many things, I do not care what is classified as a maintenance program.

When I think of a maintenance programmer. That is someone who maintains existing programs. Often this refers to non-CICS programs or batch programs. I work in a small shop and I write programs, test programs, write JCL, test JCL, run production programs, print reports etc.

I think this is a stupid question. It would only be asked by someone who follows a book for questions. A real programmer would probably not ask such a question. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[RonaldB]

Not entirely so; at my shop, different demands are made for programs that just query data collections (namely databases) then for those that actually edit data, like checkpointing and such. So the difference is not just academic. --------
Regards,
Ronald.

 

[ttodders]

Hi,
The one considered not to be maintainence would be print.