Re: [open-cobol-list] Re: [Cobolforgcc-devel] COBOL utilities project (was: open-cobol-0.9.6)

[David A. Cobb]

Tim Josling wrote:

> David Essex wrote:
>  
>
> > Tim, just a few questions regarding COBOL4GCC.
> >
> >    
> >
> > How is COBOL4GCC going to deal with indexed files ? Will it also be using DB ?
> >
> >    
>
> Probably. I will probably reuse whatever you guys are doing. Maybe later on we
> might do a custom piece but I think db is good enough to start.
Isn't DB (Berkeley, IIRC) rather overkill?  Some of their code, maybe, 
but there's a lot more in a DB than is needed for COBOL ISAM.  A COBOL 
indexed file has an unsurprising similarity to an IBM VSAM filesystem. 
Other than how it manages space allocation and lock management, there's 
nothing very sophisticated about VSAM, it's still a 1970's concept.  In 
contrast, even the simple xBase indexed structure "knows" more about the 
structure of the data.  In fact, the only thing required of an indexed 
file is that the key be the same sequential character positions in every 
record -- the records need not even be the same otherwise.  That would 
drive a DB system bonkers.

--
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate
"By God's Grace I am a Christian man, by my actions a great sinner." -- The Way 
of a Pilgrim; R. M. French, tr.
Life is too short to tolerate crappy software.
.