Can a var. of larger size redefine a var. of smaller size

mubashshirji · New User Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 16

Consider the code below :

WORKING STORAGE SECTION.
01 var1 PIC 9(4).
01 var2 REDEFINES var1 PIC 9(8).
01 var3 PIC 9(8).
PROCEDURE DIVISION.

MOVE 100 TO var1.
MOVE 1000 TO var2.

COMPUTE var3 = var1+var2.
DISPLAY var3.
STOP RUN.

Here size of var2 is greater than var1 . Can a variable of larger size redefine a variable of smaller size and vice versa ?

guptae · Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:54 pm

Hi There,

Yes. Redefines just causes both fields to start at the same location.

mubashshirji · New User Joined: 14 Nov 2006 Posts: 16

Thanx a lot Ekta

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:13 pm

not sure what COBOL or mainframe you are using, but if you had at least attempted to test this, you would have received a compiler error.

read the manual, it is very clear what a redefine does; you could have answered your own question.

no way in the world that you can redefine 4 bytes into 8.

guptae · Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:51 pm

Hi there,

Contrary to what Dick says Redefining A with B means, A and B will start from the same location So if B is of larger length than A, it just eats into memory locations that are probably allocated to other program variables. It is advisable not to do so because we could get a SOC abend if some other variable data is overwritten so it wont give u any compilation error

Hope it will helpful