Re: Re: MVT COBOL under MVS3.8j.

> PLI is the more accessible way, if I got it correctly?

Look on page 118 of the PL/I Programmers' Manual (GC28-8201-4).

Even there, it is a kluge (read into a varying variable and take its LENGTH()).

I wanted to replicate a program I wrote in BAL one afternoon (about 35 years ago) to compare text files (two source control systems neither offering the feature), so I had to look up this particular facet of PL/I.

In order to control the varying record lengths on output, of course, the runtime takes the length of the variable being written out.

And along the way, wrote yet another interface subroutine, letting COBOL do little things like read-backwards and use everything BAL could for VSAM files.

Laird Heal