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- From: rgoldstone@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU (Robin, Girl Wonder)
- Subject: problem reading COBOL print file
- Message-ID: <1992Jul23.230551.11572@ecst.csuchico.edu>
- Sender: news@ecst.csuchico.edu (no news is good news)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: oavax.csuchico.edu
- Reply-To: rgoldstone@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU
- Organization: California State University, Chico
- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 23:05:51 GMT
- Lines: 32
-
- This is probably not really an OS question, but I don't know anything about
- COBOL and am unable to help one of my users who is trying to do something
- funky with COBOL print files. Basically he is writing a program that
- will take the "print file" output from a COBOL program, and print it on
- a local, terminal-attached printer. Normally, COBOL print files contain
- carriage control info which is interpreted by a line printer. To print
- to the local (datasouth printer) his program needs to read this carriage
- control info and interpret it, then send the appropriate commands to the
- datasouth. Below is a detailed description of the problem in his words.
- It seems that when he trys to open this print file within his COBOL program
- to process it, RMS is stripping off the carriage control info he needs to
- look at. If someone understands this stuff and can offer me/him some
- suggestions, I would appreciate it. You can reply to this message, or if
- you have further questions, please direct them to him:
- Rich Meade rmeade@oavax.csuchico.edu
-
- Thanks in advance.
- -------------------------Rich's message follows------------------------------
-
- When COBOL writes a print file, it inserts forms control bytes directly
- into the file. These bytes are called a VFC header. If you read a print
- file that has been created on mass storage, RMS strips the VFC header
- information from the record before returning it to the COBOL record area.
- In this process the forms control information is lost. I would like to be
- able to read a print file and retain the forms control information. Is there
- a way to do this? I would prefer a method in COBOL.
-
-
- ***********************************************************************
- Robin Goldstone, Systems Software Specialist
- California State University, Chico Computing Services
- rgoldstone@oavax.csuchico.edu
-