Re: [Tiny-cobol-users] Re: CALL 'SYSTEM' (bash)

[Burke C. <bu...@bs...>]

Burke Cabaniss replied:

I am very naive in your TC COBOL. You provide the same syntax I use. I simply 
did not try lower case 'system' versus traditional (in my programs) 'SYSTEM'.

This resolves a big need for me in a simple way. Thank you very much.

I also asked about a small thing (to me), which is passing back a string area 
from a system call. Your example writes `ls` to stdout, but one of my programs 
(for example) needs the output as a data table in COBOL. I can do this by 
directing output to a file, and then reading the file in COBOL. But you have 
parameters on the CALL statement that I do not understand. Is there a different 
name call library function, or a CALL parameter option that provides this ?

If there are other call library functions, is there a place where I can read 
about them ?

David Essex wrote:
> Burke Cabaniss wrote:
> 
>  > Burke Cabaniss asks:
>  >
>  > In a RedHat Linux environment I need to CALL bash and
>  > pass the commands it will execute; Linux programs and
>  > other scripts.
>  > With my current COBOL, this is
>  > CALL 'SYSTEM' USING [ dataname | literal ] .
>  > I would  guess this might be done by a "canned" C executable,
>  > but am not a C programmer. I am a COBOL programmer in many
>  > environments for 40 years.
>  > `bash` capabilities greatly expand what I could do in previous
>  > environments.
>  >
>  > My COBOL has other useful CALL "canned" modules, such as one to return
>  > (pass) the string value of a bash environment variable, and the number
>  > and length of the USING parameters passed to a called COBOL program.
>  > Note that bash itself returns only an integer, if I understand.
>  >
>  > I do not find any of this treated in TC or other COBOL documentation.
>  > Please advise me about it.
> 
> Yes you can call basically call any program or library function.
> 
> Example:
> 
> 01 VAR1.
>   05 FILLER X(15) VALUE 'ls -l some-dir'
>   05 FILLER X(01) VALUE x'00'
> ...
> CALL 'system' USING VAR1.
> 
> Note that 'system' is C library call, and like any C string should be
> null terminated.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> 
> 
>