To: comp.lang.cobol - and others:
As a result of the recent J4 and WG4 meetings (and "Future of COBOL"
workshop), there is now a "definitive" list of what is INTENDED to be in =
(or
at least investigated for) the next ISO COBOL Standard - now "scheduled" =
for
2008.
The following are the relevant agenda items from:
http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/03-0168.doc
"17. Develop ISO 1989:2008 - must do items
17.1 @Dynamic tables (Piggott+Karlin/Nutsford)
17.2 @Function pointers (Bennett)
17.3 @Variable length data items
(Piggott+Ebbinkhuijsen/Nutsford)
17.4 @Function pointers (Bennett)
17.5 @Increase size limit on non-numeric literals
(Ebbinkhuijsen)
17.6 @Locale on upper and lower case functions =
(Bennett)
17.7 @Structured constants (Stevens)
17.8 @Pipes (Lanam+Klink)
17.9 @Increase minimum maxima for record locks
(Grealish+Ebbinkhuijsen)
17.10 @Function for current date in ISO-standard format
(Ebbinkhuijsen+Grealish)
17.11 03-0166 - Eliminate Cryptic Ref to "Hardware" in =
ACCEPT
Rules (Stevens)
17.12 03-0167 - Allow <> As Synonym for NOT EQUAL TO
(Stevens)
17.13 @PAGE clause corrections (00-0581) (?Bennett)
17.14 @Clarification of 8.4.1.1, Qualification, =
especially
rule 4 (????)
18. Develop ISO 1989:2008 - investigate and include if feasible in =
the
time frame
18.1 @Asynchronous processing (?Lanam?)
18.2 @Command line and environment variables (Klink)
18.3 @Method overloading (Karlin)"
For some "background" on how both J4 and WG4 "ranked" features for this =
next
revision, see:
http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/s16.doc
Also expected to be "rolled into" the 2008 ISO COBOL Standard are the
following "features" for which ISO TR (Technical Reports) will be =
available
in ADVANCE of 2008:
- Finalizer (for Objects) - (this TR has already been approved by JTC1)
- native syntax for XML support
schedule at: http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/03-0161.doc
- collection classes
schedule at: http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/03-0162.doc
To see the "approved" (well the final draft of what was approved) copy =
of
the FINALLIZER TR, go to:
http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/03-0046.doc
Related to the issue of "native syntax for XML support", I (personally)
found the following statement from:
http://www.cobolportal.com/j4/files/03-0117.doc
to be particularlly interesting:
"15.1 @02-0246 - XML classes (Schricker)
J4 considers at this time that native syntax for XML is of greater use =
to
the general COBOL community than an XML class library. J4 will consider =
an
XML class library at a later date."
***
Finally, it should be noted that just because an item from S-16 (see =
above)
is NOT scheduled for the 2008 ISO Standard, this does NOT mean that it =
won't
be considered for a "future" Standard.
--=20
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
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