Re: [open-cobol-list] possibly bug: accept into numeric field

[Keisuke Nishida]

At Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:25:20 +0100,
Thomas Biehler wrote:
> 
> i have tested your questions with the attached program  "accepttest.cob"
> (So can other users easy test it with other compiler's and send the results!)

Thanks.

> But after visiting the results i must repeat me!
> Finding out what "the standard" (really) means and implement it
> should be the very first step. After that, other "important 
> compiler-dialects" 
> could (or shoúld ?)  be supported. (or the "average of all" :-) )

Sure.  But it seems that the standard does not explicitly specify
how numeric accept should work.  I think implementing the "intuitive"
behavior is good enough here.

> COBOL-85 Compiler on DPS-7000 (GCOS-7) System:  (handy programmed tests)
> ====================================================
> Data-Item               Input        
> 01 X-1 PIC 99.       123     
> ==> Result:       Error-Message :  "Maximum Value 99: Please reenter"
> 01 X-2 PIC 99V9.   1
> ==> Result:       010  (as expected)
> 01 X-3 PIC 99V9.   123.4
> ==> Result:       Error-Message :  "Maximum Value 99.9: Please reenter"

OK, let's make this the default behavior for terminal input.
We still need to think about non-terminal input (like redirection
on Unix), though.

> tiny-cobol 0.61 (with some but not all updates from CVS)
> =================================================== 
> 
> PLEASE GIVE IN VALUE  123  in X-1  (PIC 99) : 
> 123
> VALUE OF X-1: /23/                   <=== Ooops!
>  
> PLEASE GIVE IN VALUE  1  in X-2  (PIC 99V9) : 
> 1
> VALUE OF X-2: /01.0/
>  
> PLEASE GIVE IN VALUE  123.4  in X-3  (PIC 99V9) : 
> 123.4
> VALUE OF X-3: /23.4/               <=== ???

This is easy to implement.  The following definition of cob_accept
will work as "alphanumeric to numeric move".

 void
 cob_accept (cob_field *f)
 {
   unsigned char data[FILENAME_MAX];
   cob_field_attr attr = {COB_TYPE_ALPHANUMERIC, 0, 0, 0, 0};
   cob_field temp = {0, data, &attr};

   /* read data from stdin */
   fgets (data, FILENAME_MAX, stdin);
   temp.size = strlen (data) - 1;

   /* move it to the field */
   cob_move (&temp, f);
 }

> What do you think about starting a thread 
> in the comp.lang.cobol newsgroup?

I don't read the newsgroup, and I don't want to take too much
time on this topic.  Just give me an advice how open-cobol
should work.

Keisuke