Conference turris::languages

112.0. "VAX COBOL QUESTIONS" by SCFAC::DISMUKE (Morris Dismuke DTN:521-4567) Wed Oct 15 1986 14:04

COBOL Gurus,

In my meeting today with Skip at Argonaut Insurance, these were some of
the things we discussed.

If anyone has answers to the open questions,  I sure would appreciate hearing
from you or someone who may have answers.                                     

regards

Morris

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Questions during a customer call.  COBOL Gurus have at it if you have answers.
Thanks for any assistance.

Morris DTN:521-4567

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                         ARGONAUT INSURANCE/DEC


1.  EXPLAIN SPECIAL RECORD LOCKING TECHNIQUE EMPLOYED IN MICROFOCUS         
    COBOL.

    Argonaut Response:

	Microfocus COBOL only allows lock of one record at a time.
	Argonaut needed the ability to lock many records at a time.
	Thus they need the ability to lock many records/file and this
	could mean multiple files and records.  This could mean locking
	as many as 500 records at at time for mass changes/deletions, etc.

	Also when they lock a record, the entire file is locked.
            
	They got around the locking problem by making system calls to get and 
        lock many records (see #2 below).  The file lock still exists.               

    DEC follow-up question:

	Can  VAX COBOL do this without resorting to system calls?

2.  EXPLAIN CALL "&GETNEXTREC"  using x...
    
    Argonaut Response:
    
	System call to the ISAM File Manager or operating system.

        Programs that this this would have no FD or SELECT statements.


     DEC:

	Can VAX COBOL eliminate such system calls?
                                                  

3.  IS CALL "[DO]<TEST-ARSYS>ARSYS001.INT"  COMPILED OR SOURCE CODE?


    Argonaut Response and addition question:

	Compiled code called at runtime.	
                                           
	Additional question:

		When a CALL program is CANCELed, does another CALL to
		the same program reinitialize working-storage data items
		for the CALLed program?
    
    
   
6.  EXPLAIN LOWERCASE ROUTINE (ARSYS002).

    Argonaut Response:

	Used to force uppercase for primary keys and selected data fields.

    DEC response:

	A forms manager and accomplish this task.  Argonaut still want the
	ability to do this on selected data items.  For examples:  The name
	may be entered Upper/lower case in one file but Argonaut wanted
	the ability to force uppercase for write to another file where the
	name needed to be in uppercase.
                                       

7.  Addition Argonaut questions that came out of that meeting:
    
	a.  MICROFOCUS ACCEPT VERB CAN ACCEPT AN ENTIRE SCREEN OF DATA
	    CAN VAX COBOL?

	    example:

	    WS Section
            
            01  ws-display-line.              

                05  filler  pic  x(20)  value "Name:".
	        05  name    pic  x(20).
	        05  filler  pic  x(9) value "Address:".
               	05  address pic  x(30).


	    Procedure Division.

		ACCEPT WS-DISPLAY-LINE AT 1006.
                                                     



    

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