COBOl program logic

Deja vu · New User Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 23 Location: Pune

Hello everyone,

I have to modify a program,

This program reads one input file & based on the cust-ID, it determines the type of customer ( say- cust type- A, B, C etc. This cust-type is retrieved from Db2 tables).
At present, all cust-types are processed with the same logic… Now I need to update the program to process the records with cust-type “A” with special logic & all other types as before…

Problem is that my client is going to change very frequently the processing of different cust type & thus wish to make this process dynamic…
i.e. in future there should not be any software change needed to change the processing of customer type… only Db2 table changes/parameter changes should be needed…

I’ll further clarify, Today I am processing Cust-Type A with special logic & all other types with general logic,
tomorrow I may need to process cust-type B with special logic & all other types with general logic… and all this without changing the program..i .e. only table data/parameters changes are allowed… Please suggest how to approach the problem?

I think we can pass a parameter to program with values of those cust-types which should be processed with special logic, program will read the records and validate the types against these parms & can process them as needed.. please suggest me what other way this can be handled?

Many Thanks & regards,

naveensrimf · New User Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Posts: 34

Hi,

don't change any existing logic.Just delcare Dynamic varaibles and change the program as per new dyanmic varaibles and Add your new functionality.

Deja vu · New User Joined: 15 Oct 2009 Posts: 23 Location: Pune

Thanks for your quick responce...
Actually I have never dealt with dynamic variable, could you please suggest where to look for more detailed info on this?

dick scherrer · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:56 pm

Hello,

As long as all of the customer types can be handled by existing code a solution could be to have an external control table or database table that says which customer type should use which code/routine. There would be one entry per customer type.

If a customer type is to switch from one set of code to another all that needs be done is modify the control table.

If a new set of code is needed to handle something not yet defined, then the process would have to be modified to incorporate the new processing code.