Cobol to accept copybook dynamically

akhi007 · New User Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Richmond

Is it possible to accept a copybook dynamically thru a cobol program?

My idea s as follows

Give the copybook thru SYSIN or a file. Program should use this layout for reading another file. Does it sounds interesting??

If yes, please share your ideas

Robert Sample · Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 6:43 am

COBOL is a compiled language where files have to be defined during the compile process. It is not possible to specify at run time the record length that is required at compile time. You can specify files dynamically at run time in Assembler but not in COBOL.

So your idea may be very interesting but it is not possible to do this in COBOL. Try it in a different language or give up the idea altogether.