Find out the uninitialized variable in COBOL program?

SUJATHAA · New User Joined: 26 Sep 2007 Posts: 7 Location: CHENNAI

Hi all,

Is there any way to find out uninitialized variable in a program? Do those variable will be displayed somewhere in the job after compilation. Please let me know if there is any way to find it out

Regards
Sujatha

Shanu.sukoor · New User Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 32 Location: India

As per my knowledge, it will not be displayed. It would be a logical error in the code. What do others say?

murmohk1 · Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:00 am

Sujatha,

SUJATHAA · New User Joined: 26 Sep 2007 Posts: 7 Location: CHENNAI

No not the unused variable.
For Example: In a Program "A"......

01 name pic x(5) value 'hello' ------ this is initialized variable

01 age pic 9(2). ----- This is un initialized variable.

I want to know is the variable AGE will be displayed somewhere in the compile listing

Shanu.sukoor · New User Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 32 Location: India

It will not be displayed

SUJATHAA · New User Joined: 26 Sep 2007 Posts: 7 Location: CHENNAI

Can u tell me is there any other way to make it display ?

VinayCM · New User Joined: 06 Nov 2007 Posts: 36 Location: Bengaluru

Sujatha,
There is no way to display uninitialized variable.. You can find out unused variables.

Shanu.sukoor · New User Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 32 Location: India

May be, you can write a tool for that!!! That would be the solution to find out the uninitialized variables.

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

Edit your pgm in ISPF.

On the cmd line enter: x all; f ' pic';x all ' value '

What remains displayed s/b the "uninited" variables.

Craq Giegerich · Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 2:02 am

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

Craq Giegerich · Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 7:55 pm

[quote="mmwife"]

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

I guess it all depends on the details of what he's attempting to do.

He could always put another "find all" or 2 in the mix.

But then there's the ques of the INIT verb, move spaces, etc.

As I said it's in the details. And these are ques he's got to ans, if he's interested enough.

Phrzby Phil · Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 10:59 pm

The problem is theoretically impossible.

If I could write a program to see if a given variable would ever have a value assigned to it, then I could solve the Halting Problem for Turing Machines (see any intro book on authomata theory) in the following way:

I'll write a program SIM to input another program PGM and its data, then simulate PGM. If the simulation halts, then SIM will initialize one of a own variables HALTED; otherwise, it won't.

Now, if I have a program INITTED that can tell if a variable in another program is ever initialized, I'll just run INITTED on SIM. If SIM initialized its variable HALTED, then I know the simulation halted, and therefore PGM halted.

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

Phil,

You might be right, but I think it's simpler than that: he just wants to know the fields that don't have an associated VALUE clause.

But, then again, maybe not.

SUJATHAA · New User Joined: 26 Sep 2007 Posts: 7 Location: CHENNAI

Thanks For all the reply

So the final solution is to write a COBOL pgm which has to list all the un initialized variable. I am rite?

dick scherrer · Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:13 am

Hello,

You can surely write COBOL code that will parse other COBOL code.

It may not be so straight forward to get the exact results you want (please refer to the earlier discussion).

While you are working on the code and there are questions/problems, if you post them here, we may be able to offer suggestions.

Keep in mind that reference modification is your friend