HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
The File Handling Part The File Handling Part of your COBOL Operating Guide includes information, additional to the syntax supplied in the Language Reference, to enable you to handle data files in the UNIX environment in the most effective manner. Chapter 12 , COBOL File Handling contains information on data file organization and assignment, file naming conventions, multiple reel file handling, file-name mapping, file usage and compression. It also describes the Btrieve file interface, which enables programs written to access the Btrieve file interface to map automatically onto standard Micro Focus files through the External File Handler, EXTFH. Chapter 13 , File Handler Utilities contains information on seven utilities which you can use to convert an existing file into a different file type, inspect a file for self-consistency, create an empty indexed file, add and delete indices, access file and index information, reindex a corrupt file and reorganize an indexed file on a specified key. Chapter 14 , Callable File Handler contains information on the callable external file handler (EXTFH), how you can call your own file handler, file compression, file status conversion, creating a new index, relative byte addressing, C-ISAM files and C-ISAM4 files when using the external file handler. It also contains action codes and describes the offsets and size of each of the fields in the file control description in the data division Chapter 15 , Callable Sort Module contains information on the callable external sort module, how you call it and the settings of the key and file definition blocks when using this sort module. Chapter 16 , Multi-User File Handling contains an explanation of the use of files in a UNIX environment when more than one program can access the same file at the same time. Chapter 17 , File Formats explains the physical format of each of the COBOL file types that can be produced from a COBOL program. This information can be useful in debugging programs and in accessing COBOL files from other systems or languages. Chapter 18 , File Status explains the file error handling capabilities of COBOL.