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rampras
4/05/2006
07:31:40
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 Subject: Tracking invalid chars in COBOL.
Message:
Hello,
I wanna track the invalid characters in a given string and replace them with spaces.
These invalid chars are non-displayable (displayed as a dot (.) in browse mode) chars. It can be a char other than valid chars on the keyboard.
I could think of two approaches...but there are issues with both and do not meet my requirement.
Approach 1:
1. Create CLASS A in SPECIAL-NAMES in configuration section and code all valid characters (Alphabets, numerics and special characters).
2. Extract the input string, character by character and iterate step-3 for each character.
3. Check if current character is equal to class A. If yes, continue with the next character. If no, replace the character in the input string with space.
Issues with Approach 1:
We'll have to identify all valid characters the string can have including the displayable characters that gets printed when combination of keys are pressed (Eg: Alt + 4, 5 and 6 = ╚ which is NOT an undisplayable invalid character and hence have to be included in the speaial names clause...its tedious...).
Approach 2:
Code an SQL to retreive and store the COBOL HEX value of each character in the column in a host variable. Check if the host variable is equal to '0D' (x'0D'). If yes, move spaces to the position in the string. Please refer the SQL below:
1. READ would retreive the so-comments and store it in host variable.
2. For counter <= length of the column
3. SELECT HEX(SUBSTR(column,COUNTER))
INTO :WS-HEX-VALUE
FROM table
4. Increment the counter.
5. Check if WS-HEX-VALUE = '0D'. If true, move spaces to the host variable WS-column(counter,1).
Issues with Approach 2:
x'0D' is not the only invalid character, though commonly occuring. Hence, invalid characters other than x'0D' would not be scanned by the above approach. Please note that it is not possible to list out possible hex values of invalid characters.
Experts, please help !!
|
rpquin
4/05/2006
08:10:30
| Registration in COBOL.
Message:
Dear Sirs;
I am very interested in participating in your forums; please activate my account.
Thanks
Ricardo Palomino
|
JWL
4/06/2006
01:45:59
| RE: Tracking invalid chars in COBOL.
Message:
Hi,
The easiest way to handle this, would be to have a table with 256 entries containing the character for each value in the Ascii character set. Unprintable characters would contain a space.
Using the binary value of each character in the string, get the printable character from the table.
01 HEX-TABLE
03 ASCII-CHAR PIC X(01) OCCURS 256.
Binary 00 thru 1F, 7F and FF would would each contain space. All other characters are printable, depending on the font being used. If you do not require any of these characters, use a space for the printable character.
Define something similar to
77 DEC-CHR-VAL PIC 9(05) COMP-0
01 CONVERT-X.
03 BIN-CHR PIC 9(02) COMP-X.
03 ASCII-CHR REDEFINES BIN-CHR PIC X(01).
Perform a procedure to replace the characters.
I will use SUB as the position of the character in the string and use CHARACTER to represent the character being checked. VARY SUB FROM 1 TO length of STRING OR use until SUB > length.
Procedure would be something like this
* character currently being checked
MOVE CHARACTER(SUB) TO ASCII-CHR
* convert from binary to decimal
MOVE BIN-CHR TO DEC-CHR-VAL
* as first value is zero add 1 to decimal value to get the correct location in the table
ADD 1 TO DEC-CHR-VAL
* move printable character to string
MOVE ASCII-CHAR(DEC-CHR-VAL) TO CHARACTER(SUB)
* increment subscript
ADD 1 T0 SUB
Hope this helps.
Regards
jwl
|
rampras
4/11/2006
05:02:17
| RE: Tracking invalid chars in COBOL.
Message:
JWL,
Thanks for your prompt response.
As per my understanding of your logic, I changed the "COMP-X" you had mentioned to "COMP" (Bin) and "COMP-0" to COMP-3 (packed dec).
1. I have the ASCII table declared like below:
01 TABLE-OF-DATA.
05 HEX-00 PIC X(4) VALUE '00.0'.
05 HEX-01 PIC X(4) VALUE '01.0'.
05 HEX-02 PIC X(4) VALUE '02.0'.
05 HEX-03 PIC X(4) VALUE '03.0'.
05 HEX-04 PIC X(4) VALUE '04.0'.
05 HEX-05 PIC X(4) VALUE '05.0'.
05 HEX-06 PIC X(4) VALUE '06.0'.
05 HEX-07 PIC X(4) VALUE '07.0'.
05 HEX-08 PIC X(4) VALUE '08.0'.
05 HEX-09 PIC X(4) VALUE '09.0'.
05 HEX-0A PIC X(4) VALUE '0A.0'.
05 HEX-0B PIC X(4) VALUE '0B.0'.
05 HEX-0C PIC X(4) VALUE '0C.0'.
05 HEX-0D PIC X(4) VALUE '0D.0'.
..
..
05 HEX-66 PIC X(4) VALUE '66f1'.
05 HEX-67 PIC X(4) VALUE '67g1'.
05 HEX-68 PIC X(4) VALUE '68h1'.
05 HEX-69 PIC X(4) VALUE '69i1'.
05 HEX-6A PIC X(4) VALUE '6Aj1'.
05 HEX-6B PIC X(4) VALUE '6Bk1'.
05 HEX-6C PIC X(4) VALUE '6Cl1'.
05 HEX-6D PIC X(4) VALUE '6Dm1'.
..
..
till FF.
The last char (0 or 1) would mean Invalid (0) or Valid (1).
2. I have the following piece (your MASTER logic, really).
01 WS-DEC-CHR-VAL PIC 9(05) COMP-3.
01 WS-CONVERT-X.
03 BIN-CHR PIC 9(02) COMP.
03 EBCDIC-CHR REDEFINES BIN-CHR
PIC X(01).
3. I have this in procedure div:
PERFORM 014-PROCESS-PARA THRU
014-PROCESS-PARA-EXIT
VARYING WS-COUNT FROM 1 BY 1
UNTIL WS-COUNT > 64. ==> Becos my string is of length 64, as of now.
MOVE WS-DESCRIPTION(WS-COUNT:1) TO EBCDIC-CHR.
MOVE BIN-CHR TO WS-DEC-CHR-VAL.
ADD 1 TO WS-DEC-CHR-VAL.
DISPLAY 'LAST VAL ' TAB-X1(WS-DEC-CHR-VAL)(4:1).
IF (TAB-X1(WS-DEC-CHR-VAL)(4:1)) = 0
DISPLAY ' INVALID CHAR FOUND '
DISPLAY WS-DESCRIPTION(WS-COUNT:1)
MOVE SPACES TO WS-DESCRIPTION(WS-COUNT:1)
Now, even for Invalid input chars, the IF statement is not getting satisfied. I beleive, the problem would be: The cardinality of TAB-X1 is 256 and that the length of DEC-CHR-VAL is 9(5) COMP-3. I am not sure if we can use 9(5) comp-3 as the index value of TAB-X1. I guess, thats causing the problem. Please advice !!
Thanks once again for the wonderful thought. I was thinking it would be complex to acheive and now that I am realising it would be simpler.
Regards,
Ram.
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