Is there any way to use TWO files by a single SELECT

devidas-patil · New User Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 54 Location: pune

Hi all

i have two file and i want to use both the file in the cobol program and both file have the same attribute as well as the same FD entires but allowed me to use only one SELECT INFILE ASSIGN TO DDNAME
i cant
---> use two select statement in my program and
--> i cant merge two file,
--> i can't concatenate two file

what to do in this situation?
please let me know.

murmohk1 · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 10:26 am

Patil,

devidas-patil · New User Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 54 Location: pune

hi murali
this is question of my interviews so oi told him this two option but he was expecting something different than this

Devzee · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 10:44 am

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 11:38 am

devidas-patil · New User Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 54 Location: pune

Hi anuj
i not asked him about the file usage. i am very sure he was asking me both are the input file.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:03 pm

Devzee · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:15 pm

dick scherrer · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:08 pm

Hello,

You might run a step that copies/merges the 2 files into one before executing your program with these strange rules. . .

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 7:40 pm

Hi,

I hope interviewer asked about simple COBOL-batch program, by simple I mean a program which is not using any database. From the window of original question I think I didn't direct the OP in wrong direction.

However, if you can provide some examples or can direct to some link, that would be great to understand your statements rather better.

dick scherrer · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:59 pm

Hi Anuj,

If the files were combined prior to the COBOL program, the rather non-business "rules" of the question (can't use 2 . . .etc in the COBOL program) might be met.

I just took that work out of the COBOL code to satisfy the "rules" - probably not the best way to approach this, but keeps the 3 "can't"s out of COBOL

There is always the chance that what the interviewer meant to ask and what was understood to be the requirement was not the same. . . Happens quite often when you combine an interviewer with limited technical knowldege with an interviewee with limited experience and especially if they are communicating in a language that is not the "main" language of either one.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 9:28 pm

Still bounced..!
Let's leave it.

utkarshtewari · New User Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 9 Location: UK

Hi Anuj,
Guess what dick is suggesting is that in RUN JCL we need to put a step to merge/sort the two files into one, using Utilities...thus creating a single file to be dealt with in the program...

and in the next JCL step you can execute the program.

dick scherrer · Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 5:02 am

Yup, not a way i'd do it if i had the need to process those files, but might get around the non-business requirement mentioned above.

I am fairly sure there is no business reason for the restrictons. . .

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:35 pm

Thanks Utkarsh.

skkp2006 · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:13 am

When two different files are used in a program two sets of output files or processing(database updates/deletes) is to be expected.

I would suggest to create a proc which would run the program in step1 and overriding the file in step2 which would run the same proc in a jcl to get the results.

Regards,
Syam

Johnson_Jiang · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:03 pm

Hi, Patil,

I think the question is about the run jcl. In your COBOL program, you can use one SELECT statement to handle several input file (same layout, same length), just implement it in JCL like follows:

//INPUTFIL DD DSN=FILE1.XXX,DISP=SHR
// DD DSN=FILE2.XXX,DISP=SHR
// DD DSN=FILE3.XXX,DISP=SHR
:
:
:
So in cobol program, you can use:

SELECT Inputfil-file ASSIGN TO INPUTFIL ....

It works!

murmohk1 · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:09 pm

Johnson,

devidas-patil · New User Joined: 08 Jan 2007 Posts: 54 Location: pune

Thanks all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Naresh Kumar Reddy P · New User Joined: 24 May 2007 Posts: 8 Location: Bangalore

Probably, the interviewer was expecting DD concatination in your JCL. I believe it is the only way to accept two input files with one select statement in your program (for pure cobol program).

Thanks
Reddy

dick scherrer · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:13 pm

Hello Reddy,

Please read the post from the beginning. The initial post post says

kgumraj · Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:04 pm

Hi,

I can imagine only this: Using same DD name for the input files.
When I ran it only took the first input file.
But I didnt get the buisnees in doing so

mmwife · Super Moderator Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 1592

Hi Anju,

There's a relatively new feature in COBOL (Eviroment Variables - I think) that allows the coder to change the FD stmt to define a different dataset than the one being currently used. It calls a subroutine "putenv", among other things. It's a fairly involved process.

Another approach is BPXWDYN, an interface to SVC 99.

I haven't used either of these so this is about all I know on the subject.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:44 pm

Earl · Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:59 am

I think you can only have max of 16 fd's per cobol program. was involved with project years ago that required using same fd in cobol
program. I used a dynamic allocation subroutine to change
the dataset name on the fly and then open/close the file as logically needed.

FD SAME-FD assign SAMEFD
..
..
..
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
MOVE 'MYFILE.FILEONE' TO WS-FILE-NAME.
CALL 'DYDSN' USING WS-FILE-NAME, SAME-FD, 'SAMEFD'.
OPEN INPUT SAME-FD.
READ SAME-FD INTO WS-SAVE-FILEONE-RECORD.
CLOSE SAME-FD.

MOVE 'MYFILE.FILETWO' TO WS-FILE=NAME.
CALL 'DYDSN' USING WS-FILE-NAME, SAME-FILE.
OPEN INPUT SAME-FD
READ SAME-FD INTO WS-SAVE-FILETWO-RECORD.
PERFORM PROCESS-FILE-TWO.
....
...
....