Re: [Cobolforgcc-devel] Added function

[Tim J. <te...@me...>]

Bill,

Sorry I mean non-numeric literals, not C style null terminated
strings. I'm aware of the issues with figurative constants, ALL
etc.

It appears that in the procedure division I can concatenate
literals like this 
"a" & "b" 

but this is not allowed elsewhere eg in the working-storage.
There, one must do 
"a"-
"b"

Is that right? I must say I fail to see what good is achieved by
this irregularity.

Currently I allow & anywhere, as in X/Open COBOL. 

Tim Josling

"William M. Klein" wrote:
> 
> I am a "mere" COBOL person.  Can you tell me what you mean by "string
> literals"?  I can think of several "possible" meanings (in COBOL terms) but
> don't know what you mean by them.
> 
> NOTE: The draft Standard provides a facility called "Concatenation
> Expression" (defined in "8.8.3 Concatenation expressions" on page 124 of CD
> 1.10).  If this is what you are talking about, make certain that you look at
> rules concerning figurative constants, class and category, etc.
> 
> P.S.  If by "string literals," you are referring to (what I know as)
> ASCII-null-terminated-strings, then this is NOT allowed in the draft
> Standard - but is implemented (as an extension) in several compilers by the
> use of Z-literals. If these are of interest, then I can point to either IBM
> or MERANT LRM entries for them.
>