MAINFRAME  COBOL  - VS COBOL II

  1. WHAT IS THE EQUIVALENT SYSTEM-ID FOR THE PROGRAM-ID: 45-IBMMAINFRAMES
 

ANSWER: D50IBMMA

   
  2. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE B/W REDEFINES & RENAMES CLAUSES?
   

Internally there is no difference between Redefines & Renames. Both of them occupies same storage area.

REDEFINED data items can be Qualified and can be treated as a separate variable throughout the program. RENAMED items can not be Qualified and treated as an alias of the original item.

You can REDEFINE an elementary item or Group item as a elementary of group. Only group items can be RENAMED as a elementary or fixed group.
   
    3. WHAT ARE THE APPLICATION OF REDEFINES & RENAMES?
 

REDEFINES

1. DATA CONVERSION

2. NAME ALIAS

3. PARTIAL VALUE

4. VARIABLE OVERRIDE

                           RENAMES

1. REGROUPING

2. NAME ALIAS

3. PARTIAL ACCEPT/DISPLAY

4. GROUP OVERRIDE
   
  4. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF INLINE PERFORM?
  1. STRUCTURED APPROACH

2. TOP DOWN DESIGN STRATEGY

3. HIGH READABILITY

4. IMPROVED MAINTAINABILITY
   
  5. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF NESTED PROGRAMS?
   

//All the features of the above questions are ok to this also

1. Reduced Overhead (compiling all Subroutines separately)

2. Advantage of GLOBAL Data items

3. All Symbolic Characters, Classes and Alphabetic Conditions are available to all Programs automatically

4. Advantage of COMMON & INITIAL Programs
   
  6. WHAT ACTUALLY "ABOVE LINE" MEANS?
  VS COBOL II Supports two addressing modes 24 bit and 31 bit. By default, all VS COBOL II programs run under 24 bit. It's enough for ordinary programs. If your program uses an over bound Array or if the size exceeds above 2 GB, you need to run the program above line. For this, you should specify the compiler options RENT, RESIDENT and AMODE(31).
   
  7. CAN I REFER AN ARRAY ELEMENT WITHOUT SUBSCRIPT/INDEX?
 

Basically it is not allowed (to ACCEPT / DISPLAY). But you can SEARCH, REDEFINES an array without the position identifier (Subscript/index). Also ASCENDING/DESCENDING KEY and USE FOR DEBUGGING verbs need not be positioned for Array.

   
  8. WHEREVER I CAN'T USE THE VALUE CLAUSE?
   

1. EXTERNAL variables

2. FILE & LINKAGE section (except CNC)

3. REDEFINES Clause (subfields only)

4. RENAMES Clause (66 leveled item)

5. External FLOATING Point items ( Hmm.. I hope, you know, what is External Floating points)

6. USAGE INDEX
   
  9. WHAT IS DYNAMIC CALL? WHAT IS THE NEED OF THAT?
   

Basically all Programming Languages allow Static Call and Dynamic Call. Static Call means the program to be called is already known to the main program, and hence, it should be loaded in memory before calling. Dynamic Call means the program to be called is known only at Run time. So we can't load it in memory. The main program should search for the Sub program in Copy Library (usually System Library) and load it dynamically into memory.

In VS COBOL II, You may use a variable in CALL identifier and pass the value through RUN JCL. This is the best example of Dynamic call. You should use DYNAM compiler option to call the program dynamically and the sub program must be separately compiled and resided in System copy Library.

The advantage of Dynamic Call is Language element libraries and other Language's programs can be called and you can call more than one program using a single main program (with same program Id). There is no need to Link edit the Main program, when ever you change the sub program.
   
  10. CAN I REDEFINE A RECORD OF A FILE?
  If you answer as 'NO' it's shows you are brilliant. Because all IBM Libraries says it can't.

But It's possible. Yes, you can REDEFINES the RECORD of a file using "SAME RECORD AREA" clause.
   

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