Enterprise COBOL V6+ - Declaring multiple conditional compilation variables on the same >>DEFINE directive

Although the current Idea tries to reduce the number of lines that need to be written, we believe the existing design is easier to read and understand.

Also, other languages like C don't allow the directive continuations.

As a result, we will be rejecting this considering there are other features being worked on for conditional compilation.

This Idea is being assessed further and needs more time.

Hi,

We have developed COPYBOOKs which adapt to the context according to the conditional compilation variables.

Before referring to the COPYBOOK, we declare a number of variables that give this context.

Today, you have to create as many lines containing a >>DEFINE directive as there are variables to manage: this weighs down the source code.

We would like it to be possible to declare several variables with the same >>DEFINE directive.

Example:

cdS95C >>define AA-A-ACCES as 'L'

cdS95C >>define AA-A-MODE as 'S'

cdS95C >>define AA-A-ORG as '2'

cdS95C >>define AA-A-NR as -1

cdS95C >>define AA-A-NS as 0

cdS95C copy AAAPACCE

cdS95C replacing ==:DD:== by ==S9==

cdS95C ==:PREF:== by ==S95C==

cdS95C ==:NS:== by ==0==

cdS95C .

would become:

cdS95C >>define AA-A-ACCES as 'L', AA-A-MODE as 'S', AA-A-ORG as '2'

cdS95C >>define AA-A-NR as -1, AA-A-NS as 0

cdS95C copy AAAPACCE

cdS95C replacing ==:DD:== by ==S9==

cdS95C ==:PREF:== by ==S95C==

cdS95C ==:NS:== by ==0==

cdS95C .

And taking into account our ideas COBOLVUE-I-335 on the directive continuation, this would give:

cdS95C >>define AA-A-ACCES as 'L', AA-A-MODE as 'S', AA-A-ORG as '2'

cdS95C >>- AA-A-NR as -1, AA-A-NS as 0

cdS95C copy AAAPACCE

cdS95C replacing ==:DD:== by ==S9==

cdS95C ==:PREF:== by ==S95C==

cdS95C ==:NS:== by ==0==

cdS95C .