[open-cobol-list] discussion: implemention of truncation COBOL-WORD to 30 (31) chars ?

[Thomas Biehler]

Hi all,

i would like to know what the member of this mailinglist
think about a (automatic; implicit) truncation
of a to long COBOL-WORD (identifier ...)
to the maximal allowed length from the standard. 

for the maximal allowed length of a COBOL-WORD see in the standard:
  -  ANSI INCITS 23-1985 (R2001)  § 4.2.2.1 ==>  30 Characters
  -  ISO/IEC 2002(E) §8.3.1.1  ==> 31 Characters.

The truncation is Micro-Focus "normal" behavior  (for the 1985 - standard!) .
(1006-E  --> Error ---> automatic correctur ,
  see the following excerpt from the error message guide )

Micro Focus:
======================================================
1006  COBOL word contains more than 30 characters. Word truncated

      The name that you have specified is longer than 30 characters.
      Your COBOL system treats this as a name consisting 
      of the first 30 characters of your original name
======================================================. 

I have attached a patch to the current cvs-version from pplex.l 
which truncates to 30 chars (1985 standard!) as a proof of concept.

I am porting a "MF-application", which contains a small amount 
of to long identifiers. Changing the non-allowed identifiers / programs 
would not generate big effort to me! 
I could also change the MF-compiler configuration!
  (=> CHANGE-MESSAGE ...  1006-E to 1006-S --> severe error!)

How the too long identifier come into existence ?
 -->   the "to long identifier" are generated from a database; 
        with a additional prefix they are to long!

I really want to know what other cobol users think about this. 
(And perhaps needs, if anybody also port a "Micro-Focus Application")

You can see the attached patch is very small! 
Easy to implement!

Should this behavior be implemented in open-cobol? 
In a similar way?  (with a warning ?)
As a MF-Cobol behavior only? (with a special configuration option ?!)

Or are there any good reasons against this?
(except the "nonconforming standard" argument)

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Thomas

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