Re: Display of VAR1 PICTURE 9P includes an 0x00 NULL character

[Ron Norman]

This same program using Microfocus COBOL outputs the following:

---Mem Dump<[/tmp/foo]>--

000000:35 0a 35 0a 35 0a                                  5.5.5.  

And using GnuCOBOL (current development version) I get:

--Mem Dump<[/tmp/foo]>--
000000:35 30 0a 35 0a 2e 30 35 - 0a                       50.5..05.     

On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 2:34 PM Robert Dubner <address@hidden> wrote:

Hello, folks.  My name is Bob Dubner, I work at the Symas Corporation.
I'm new to open software development, but I'm certainly not new to
debugging.  So, I am supplying the information that I figured would be
helpful.

I have not made an effort to find where in the cobc code the error might
be found. 

If there is a preferred way of reporting problems, please let me know.

Bob Dubner

========

Statement of problem:

DISPLAY of a variable with a greater than 1.00 P-scaled PICTURE string
generates
a string that ends with a 0x00 NULL before the newline.

Demonstration session:

bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release:        18.04
Codename:       bionic

bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ uname -a
Linux doobie 4.15.0-70-generic #79-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 12 10:36:11 UTC 2019
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ cobc --version
cobc (GnuCOBOL) 3.1-dev.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
Written by Keisuke Nishida, Roger While, Ron Norman, Simon Sobisch, Edward
Hart
Built     Nov 28 2019 16:36:43
Packaged  Nov 27 2019 22:35:50 UTC
C version "7.4.0"


bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ cat bug.cbl
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. QWIK-CHECK.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01 VAR1 PICTURE 9P VALUE 50    .
       01 VAR2 PICTURE 9  VALUE  5    .
       01 VAR3 PICTURE P9 VALUE  0.05 .
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       DISPLAY VAR1
       DISPLAY VAR2
       DISPLAY VAR3
       STOP RUN.

bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ cobc -x bug.cbl
bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ ./bug >bug.txt
bob@doobie:~/projects/cobol/bug$ hexdump -C bug.txt
00000000  35 30 00 0a 35 0a 2e 30  35 0a                    |50..5..05.|
0000000a

Note that the third character in bug.txt is an 0x00 NULL.

--

Cheers

Ron Norman