cobol, length of subroutine names

length of subroutine names

Author	Message
Kirk Bradl #1 / 8	length of subroutine names I don't have a copy of the COBOL language std.. Are there ANSI limits on the length of external routine names? Is it just generally true that to write truly portable code you have to keep your external names to 6, 7,8, 10 or whatever characters in length? Don Nelson?
Mon, 01 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Don Nelso #2 / 8	length of subroutine names Quote: > I don't have a copy of the COBOL language std.. Are there ANSI > limits on the length of external routine names? Is it just generally > true that to write truly portable code you have to keep your external > names to 6, 7,8, 10 or whatever characters in length? Don Nelson? The ISO/ANSI COBOL standard says they can be a maximum of 30 characters. All conforming COBOL compilers must support names up to 30 characters in length. There are some systems that fudge a bit, but I think almost all of them today allow the longer names. -- Don Nelson COBOL Development, Tandem Computers, Inc. Member, ANSI X3J4 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 WG4 COBOL Committees No clever quotes here
Tue, 02 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Kirk Bradl #3 / 8	length of subroutine names Ok.. I see the 30 character INTERNAL name stuff. Does ANSI require that the OS support 30 character EXTERNAL names (program id)? IBM limits you to 8 Quote: > > I don't have a copy of the COBOL language std.. Are there ANSI > > limits on the length of external routine names? Is it just generally > > true that to write truly portable code you have to keep your external > > names to 6, 7,8, 10 or whatever characters in length? Don Nelson? > The ISO/ANSI COBOL standard says they can be a maximum of 30 > characters. All conforming COBOL compilers must support names up to > 30 characters in length. There are some systems that fudge a bit, but > I think almost all of them today allow the longer names. > -- > Don Nelson > COBOL Development, Tandem Computers, Inc. > Member, ANSI X3J4 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 WG4 COBOL Committees > No clever quotes here
Tue, 02 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

lsv.. #4 / 8	length of subroutine names Quote: > I don't have a copy of the COBOL language std.. Are there ANSI >limits on the length of external routine names? Is it just generally >true that to write truly portable code you have to keep your external >names to 6, 7,8, 10 or whatever characters in length? Don Nelson? ----------------- On some older systems (eg. GCOS8) there is a limit of 6 characters (which goes back to when many computers had 36-bit words and were useing 6-bit BCD character codes).
Wed, 03 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

S Comsto #5 / 8	length of subroutine names Quote: Kirk Bradley writes: > Ok.. I see the 30 character INTERNAL name stuff. Does ANSI require > that the OS support 30 character EXTERNAL names (program id)? IBM > limits you to 8 The IBM COBOL for MVS & VM (formerly COBOL/370) compiler allows for long EXTERNAL names, as well as lower case and mixed case external names. To make this work in the MVS / OS/390 environment (which still requires 8 character names), you use a program called the pre-linker. Among other tasks, this program creates 8 character names from your up-to-30-character and lower-, mixed-, or upper-case external program names. Regards, Steve Comstock Denver, Colorado USA telephone: 800-993-8716 or: 303-393-8716 fax: 303-393-8718
Wed, 03 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Kirk Bradl #6 / 8	length of subroutine names Thanks for the update. I knew that was true for C but I didn't know it was true for COBOL. I'll check it out Quote: > Kirk Bradley writes: > > Ok.. I see the 30 character INTERNAL name stuff. Does ANSI require > > that the OS support 30 character EXTERNAL names (program id)? IBM > > limits you to 8 > The IBM COBOL for MVS & VM (formerly COBOL/370) compiler allows for long > EXTERNAL names, as well as lower case and mixed case external names. To > make this work in the MVS / OS/390 environment (which still requires 8 > character names), you use a program called the pre-linker. Among other > tasks, this program creates 8 character names from your up-to-30-character > and lower-, mixed-, or upper-case external program names. > Regards, > Steve Comstock > Denver, Colorado > USA > telephone: 800-993-8716 > or: 303-393-8716 > fax: 303-393-8718
Wed, 03 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

Ronald Freiling #7 / 8	length of subroutine names Quote: >Ok.. I see the 30 character INTERNAL name stuff. Does ANSI require >that the OS support 30 character EXTERNAL names (program id)? IBM >limits you to 8 External names are limited to eight.
Fri, 05 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

S Comsto #8 / 8	length of subroutine names Quote: >Ok.. I see the 30 character INTERNAL name stuff. Does ANSI require >that the OS support 30 character EXTERNAL names (program id)? IBM >limits you to 8 To which Ronald Freilinger replied: Quote: > External names are limited to eight. Not exactly. At least one compiler (IBM's COBOL for MVS & VM, which is simply release 2 of their COBOL/370 compiler) supports long external names (even names that are case sensitive). This is implemented using a "pre-linker" which maps long names to 8-character names required by MVS. Regards, Steve Comstock Denver, Colorado USA telephone: 800-993-8716 or: 303-393-8716 fax: 303-393-8718
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 03:00:00 GMT

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