Meaning of Comma (,) in Easytrieve

charlessxavier · New User Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 4 Location: India

Hello all,

I just encountered this code in one of my easytrieve programs

IF HBFM = 1, 7
WACK = WACK + 1
GO TO JOB
END-IF

Which is asking the control to skip the record and go to job...

But what does a COMMA (,) mean here ? is it OR ?

please help me with this

Bill Woodger · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 8:52 pm

WACK? OK, I'll leave it. Probably not your choice.

Have a look at "Field Series Condition" in your manual.

Yes, it is like an OR as far as the values in series are concerned. Or multiple identical IFs, except with a different value to match.

I've not used it, for the reason you have discovered. Someone looks at the code and just doesn't plain understand it. After a while, you realise it must be an "OR" of some sort, but not convinced until you hit the manual.

Easytrieve doesn't have an equivalent of 88s other than this. 88s is how you'd want to do it in Cobol.

I'd code out the ORs. At least any reader will understand when they see the code. I don't know what would happen if you have, say, three values but you miss the comma out for one of them. You could try, and let us know :-)

charlessxavier · New User Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 4 Location: India

Thanks a lot bill,

WACK is a variable for counting the number of records which satisfies the given condition, it is kind of acknowledgment variable...

And so if there are multiple values separated by Comas.. you mean to say the condition would be "either of" the values given.. right ?

Bill Woodger · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:41 pm

Yes. As you suspected, it is like an OR. Either of two values or any of more than two values and the test will be true.

charlessxavier · New User Joined: 12 Sep 2010 Posts: 4 Location: India

Okay !!

Thanks a lot for helping out