changeformat - yet to find a program it works on. ??

[David Wall]

I realise that sounds a bit rough - but most programs I've tested it against - it crashes with the following display.

libcob: changeformat.cob:549: error: subscript of 'WORD-TYPE' out of bounds: 0
libcob: changeformat.cob:549: warning: implicit CLOSE of INPUT-FILE ('desimake.COB')
libcob: changeformat.cob:549: warning: implicit CLOSE of OUTPUT-FILE ('desimake.FIX')
 Last statement of "changeformat" was at line 549 of changeformat.cob
 Started by changeformat
            desimake.COB
            desimake.FIX
            TOFIXED

The 'only' program I have that actually completed successfully is 6 lines.

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       BEGIN.
        ACCEPT THINGY FROM ENVIRONMENT "THINGY".
        MOVE 1 TO FIELDA.
        DISPLAY THINGY LINE 10 COL 10 ACCEPT OMITTED.
        STOP RUN.

Anything more complicated appears to upset it.

Found it - found it - found it. - Found the fault - 'this is a joyful explanation'.

A program that converts from freeformat to fixed format DOESN'T ACCEPT BLANK LINES.
So - I've got to pre-edit my code before I can process my code - that seems a good idea - NOT.

[Simon Sobisch]

@davewall: Please use formatting in your posts as this makes them much easier readable. Thanks.

Concerning the "reported" issue: You may want to create a simple bug issue (milestone contrib, title starting with "changeformat:") assigning it to Vince about the empty line problem with the simple sample that works and with an empty line in it that does not work (two attachments).

Concerning the introductory sentence: Did you tried "cbl-gdb" yet? There are even windows binaries at https://cobolworx.com/pages/windows.html ...

[David Wall]

@sf-mensch - you've got me lost 'again'.
Where do I need to 'format' what would appear to me to be a reasonably well constructed sentence - ok I didn't put a blank line between what I typed & the program output.
OK - I edited my entry.

On a second note:
I 'looked' at cbl-gdb and noted that it would appear to be a text based debugger -

In so much that you have to do some considerable entering of commands to produce the output - I'd rather use what I've developed over the last few years where the output is displayed on the screen along with the original code lines and debug output.

see attached screen dumps of it running against the sample soh.cbl source code used in cbl-gdb as well as a run time trace listing both before and after dataname content.

THUS - you can see why I wanted to look at Ralph L's program to :See what I was missing & vice versa.

[Simon Sobisch]

sf-mensch - you've got me lost 'again'.
Where do I need to 'format' what would appear to me to be a reasonably well constructed sentence

My note was not as clear as it should have been, thanks for your patience with me here.
What I did meant was: there are formatting options in this discussion board, the most important ones are the code formatting and the quoting.
You can get to the "simple" ones in the post creation/editing (kind of a title bar in there) and use a click to format your posts this way. There is additional a circle with a question mark in there that provides the online help how to use the editor, especially how to use so called artifact links (for commits, issue tracker, forum entries, ...) and also how to specify the source language in a code block. Using those creates easier readable posts.

Edit: I've applied those to your post and suggest you have a look at this via "edit", possibly remove those "strange characters" and look with "preview" how the result renders.

[Simon Sobisch]

I 'looked' at cbl-gdb and noted that it would appear to be a text based debugger

You may want to check out more details how the text based debugger works.
You have pure GDB (where you use list to show the source, if you dislike the colors you can change or disable the "styling", too) and GDB's TUI mode which always shows you the source code for context.

You can additionally use GDB frontends, that will always show you the code and often also show you the variable-content on mouse-over and/or by querying under the cursor/selection with a key and/or show you the variables you are interested in in a list/tree. I'm personally using a Vim-Frontend in the console (so "TUI" again ;-) and from time to time try the vscode integration that COBOLWorx offers.

[Chuck H.]

Simon,

There is a bug in the CONVERT-TO-FIXED paragraph. I moved the check for a RECORD-TYPE = BLANK to the beginning of the paragraph and added an EXIT PARAGRAPH as follows. It now works correctly. I did NOT fix or modify the free format version of the code. I assume that Vince Coen would do that.

       CONVERT-TO-FIXED.
           CALL 'scancobol' USING INPUT-RECORD SCAN-CONTROL END-CALL

      * start embedded test if running changeformat on itself
      *    move
      * ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
      *                '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' to test-record
      *    move
      * """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
      *                """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" to test-record
      * end embedded test

      * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
      *                                                               *
      *    IF THE INPUT RECORD IS A BLANK RECORD THEN PROCESS IT      *
      *    AND EXIT THE PARAGRAPH.                                    *
      *                                                               *
      * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

      *  output a blank record
           IF RECORD-TYPE = 'BLANK'
               PERFORM INCREMENT-WOUTX-MAX
               EXIT PARAGRAPH
           END-IF.

      *  convert and remove any comment from input-record
      *                                 free comment
           IF WORD-TYPE(WORDX-MAX) = 9
               MOVE WORD-VALUES(WORDX-MAX) TO SCAN-VALUES
               EVALUATE TRUE
               WHEN INPUT-RECORD(SCAN-START + 2:) = SPACES
      *          empty comment
                   PERFORM INCREMENT-COUTX-MAX
                   MOVE '*' TO COMMENT-OUTPUT(COUTX-MAX)(7:1)
               WHEN SCAN-END <= 67
      *          comment fits
                   PERFORM INCREMENT-COUTX-MAX
                   MOVE '*' TO COMMENT-OUTPUT(COUTX-MAX)(7:1)
                   MOVE INPUT-RECORD(SCAN-START + 2:SCAN-LENGTH - 2)
                       TO COMMENT-OUTPUT(COUTX-MAX)(7 +
                                        SCAN-START:SCAN-LENGTH - 2)
               WHEN OTHER
      *          comment text is beyond the fixed limit
                   PERFORM CONVERT-COMMENT
               END-EVALUATE
      *      remove the comment
               MOVE SPACES TO INPUT-RECORD(SCAN-START:)
               COMPUTE WORDX-MAX = WORDX-MAX - 1 END-COMPUTE
           END-IF