Last line before starting a new paragraph must ends with Dot "."

[Suman Saurabh]

Hi KrisDS,

I was trying to parse below code koopa was failing due to it expecting last line before starting a new paragraph must ends with Dot "."
"." is optional in COBOL before start of the paragraph, so please make it optional.

Not working COBOL:

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.                                         
       PROGRAM-ID. MYTEST01.                                            
       AUTHOR.         SAURABH.                                           
      *                                                                 
       ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.                                            
      *                                                                 
       DATA DIVISION.                                                   
      *                                                                 
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.                                         
       01  WS-VARIABLES.                                                
           05  WS-ABC                    PIC  S9(16) COMP.              
           05  WS-PROGRAM                PIC   X(08).                   
           05  WS-RESP                   PIC  S9(08) COMP               
                                                     VALUE ZERO.        

       LINKAGE SECTION.                                                 
       PROCEDURE DIVISION USING SPL-COMMAREA.                           
           EXEC SQL INCLUDE ABCDEFGH END-EXEC                           

       100-PROCESS. 

       100-EXIT.
       EXIT. 

Working COBOL :

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.                                         
       PROGRAM-ID. MYTEST01.                                            
       AUTHOR.         SAURABH.                                           
      *                                                                 
       ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.                                            
      *                                                                 
       DATA DIVISION.                                                   
      *                                                                 
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.                                         
       01  WS-VARIABLES.                                                
           05  WS-ABC                    PIC  S9(16) COMP.              
           05  WS-PROGRAM                PIC   X(08).                   
           05  WS-RESP                   PIC  S9(08) COMP               
                                                     VALUE ZERO.        

       LINKAGE SECTION.                                                 
       PROCEDURE DIVISION USING SPL-COMMAREA.                           
           EXEC SQL INCLUDE ABCDEFGH END-EXEC                           
       .
       100-PROCESS. 

       100-EXIT.
       EXIT.                                                            

Regards
Saurabh

[KrisDS]

Ugh; sometimes I wonder what people were thinking when designing Cobol...

Could you make a an issue for this in the tracker ? I'm not sure when I'll get the time to fix this. And it will take some time for sure...

[Simon Sobisch]

EXEC something is not part of the COBOL design, it's an extension. And I guess it's not a feature but a bug in the compiler originally used...
So I think it may could be a good idea to fix the sources? In the hope to sound not too harsh: "If I pass a Lorem Ipsum text to Koopa it doesn't recognize COBOL" (some compiler may do this, recognizing all words as paragraph names)...

BTW: For starting a paragraph there must not be any open sentences (and of course a sentence is finished with a dot).

This both works (did not checked if Koopa get's both the section and paragraph name correct in sample two)

            [...]
            CONTINUE.
       *----------------------------------------------------
        some-sec SECTION.
        some-par.

            [...]
            CONTINUE.
       *----------------------------------------------------
        some-sec SECTION some-par.  *> no dot before some-par

Simon

[mahesh]

Saurabh,

From what I know also, a period IS required before starting a new paragraph or section in COBOL grammar. Period is optional for the statements within Paragraphs, EXCEPT FOR the last statement. Quick ref: http://condor.depaul.edu/jpetlick/COBOL02.html - Where a period is required.

Reading few COBOL dialect manuals would be required to re-confirm it. Compiling the code without a period before a Para name would be the quickest way to confirm.

Which COBOL compiler and version r u using?

[Suman Saurabh]

Hi,

I tried to present sample based on the code which I received from Mainframe.
I just wanted to present the problem here.

I have a working COBOL source which is running on mainframe system, but when I am trying to use koopa to parse that source, it is failing since it doesn't have period in last line before starting a new paragraph.

I think they are using COBOL 2 to compile the code.

Regards
Saurabh