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Status Not under consideration
Workspace COBOL Compilers
Created by Guest
Created on Aug 13, 2018

SSRANGE have more granular suboption such as enabling checking to target (update) fields only

During runtime whenever COBOL code don't well handle for reference modification fields such as below it would cause serious storage overlay especially within CICS.

WS-A PIC X(10)
WS-B PIC X(20)
WS-POS PIC S9(04) COMP

MOVE WS-A TO WS-B (WS-POS:)

While WS-POS is 22.
Cobol compiler calculate target update length as 20 - 22 + 1 = -1. Thus Cobol move WS-A TO WS-B with length X'FFFFFFFF' using MVCLE and cause overlay for whole storage.

This serious of runtime error should prevented by compiler rather than rely on developer.

MOVE WS-A TO WS-B (WS-POS:) was feature auto calculate target length provided by COBOL and it should safe guard the feature rather rely on developer.

Understand that SSRANGE can prevent it but it would too much overhead by checking both source and target fields.

COBOL compiler could do better by balance both developer effort and system resource to perform extra checking especially to length calculated by compiler.

Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Dec 16, 2020

    IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS is a continuous delivery offering, and aims to satisfy the needs of a rapidly evolving market segment. Product strategy evolves and requirements are continuously evaluated against that strategy. This RFE has recently been reappraised against the wider product strategy and does not fall into IBMs delivery plans for the next 12 month. Whilst this RFE might be valid and we might look to deliver longer term, this RFE is being rejected at this time. The requirement will be kept in our internal RFE backlog and might be reassessed in the future.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Sep 20, 2019

    I like this ! We have a similar challenge where-by even though SSR is a major benefit for avoiding storage protection issues on tables it tends to be more of a hindrance for Reference Modification. Another possibility is to simply extend the SSRANGE compiler options to allow operation on tables but not for RefMod.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Oct 12, 2018

    This RFE is being updated, but we plan to implement it by adding a sub-option for SSRANGE to restrict it to receive it only and ref mod only (and possible tables only).

    The RFE will be updated further once put into plan.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Aug 17, 2018

    In the case of a transfer by "reference modification" the compiler should systematically test the value of the starting position and trigger an abend if it is greater than the size of the addressed area (regardless of the presence of the length in the "reference modification") for both source and target areas.
    To see whether it is also necessary to test the result of the calculation (starting position + length) with respect to the effective length of the addressed zone.
    Considerations should be given to "OCCURS 0 TO 1 DEPENDING ON LG" (with LG> 1) that may have been used before Cobol V5 / V6 and the availability of "OCCURS TO UNBOUNDED" (this construction avoided costly recalculation BLL registers before Cobol V5 / V6).