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Status Not under consideration
Workspace COBOL Compilers
Created by Guest
Created on Jul 4, 2015

RELATED IDEAS

Perform until exit

Now that COBOL finally has proper EXIT statements there should be a way to speciify an "infinite" loop, or rather a loop that has no explicit end condition but depends on the use of EXIT PERFORM (or EXIT PROGRAM, STOP RUN, GOBACK) to terminate the loop.

While no COBOL standard yet allows for this (a glaring omission), both Micro Focus COBOL and GNU COBOL (formerly OpenCOBOL) allow for "PERFORM UNTIL EXIT" to provide this functionality.

Other languages have a similar feature.
PL/I: DO LOOP;
C/C++/Java: for (;;) {}

Note: This would ideally be added to the current COBOL compiler (5.2) (the first to provide EXIT PERFORM) rather than held for a new release.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 12, 2016

    Denis mentions this structure is possible in REXX. Indeed it is. As well as in PL/I, and C, and C++, and, Java, and C#, and Delphi, and Python, and Ruby, and Perl, and Ada, and, well, in pretty much every language known to man other than COBOL. :-(
    (No, I never give up.)

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Sep 14, 2015

    Due to processing by IBM, this request was reassigned to have the following updated attributes:
    Brand - Servers and Systems Software
    Product family - Programming Languages
    Product - COBOL Compilers

    For recording keeping, the previous attributes were:
    Brand - Rational
    Product family - Design & development
    Product - COBOL Compilers

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Sep 9, 2015

    This kind of structure is possible in Rexx :

    do forever
    ...
    if ... then leave
    ...
    end

    This kind of loop removes the need for a variable and test and feeding instructions of this variable.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Aug 10, 2015

    I can't say that I am not disappointed. By virtue of the fact that other COBOL vendors support it its apparent to me that the COBOL standards group made a poor decision to not support something like this.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Aug 4, 2015

    Thanks for opening this RFE, but PERFORM UNTIL EXIT is currently not in the COBOL Standard. Also, since there already is a way to achieve the functionality (as mentioned in the RFE), this item is currently being declined. Feel free to let us know if you have any further questions/concerns.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 14, 2015

    Yes, those enhancements to EXIT are supported. But I am asking for "PERFORM UNTIL EXIT", which is not currently supported.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 14, 2015

    Looks like this is available in COBOL 5.2 as well as EXIT PARAGRAPH and SECTION

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 10, 2015

    Interesting thought, but needs its own RFE. Plus I'm not sure how you could do this with COBOL-like syntax, considering that labels in COBOL have somewhat different behavior. Or are you suggesting the addition of a new type of label for this purpose? Something like the following?

    loop-test.
    loop-1: PERFORM UNTIL EXIT
    loop-2: PERFORM UNTIL EXIT
    IF ...
    EXIT PERFORM loop-2
    END-IF
    loop-3: PERFORM UNTIL EXIT
    IF ...
    EXIT PERFORM loop-1
    END-IF
    END-PERFORM loop-3
    END-PERFORM loop-2
    statement-a
    END-PERFORM loop-1
    statement-b
    EXIT PARAGRAPH.

    Interesting, certainly, but I would not put it on the top of my wish-list.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 10, 2015

    Like PL/I, you should be able to supply a label on the loops. Then "EXIT loop_label" could exit several nested loops, not only the current.

    loop_1: PERFORM UNTIL...
    loop_2: PERFORM UNITL...
    leave loop_2 *> goes to statement_a
    loop_3: PERFORM UNITL....
    leave loop_1 *> goes to statement_b
    end loop_3
    end loop_2
    statement_a
    end loop_1
    statement_b

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jul 9, 2015

    In my opinion a nice request. I too use that machanism in other languages.
    Added to GSE ADL watchlist

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