IBM Z Software
Hide about this portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Z Software products. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas

  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Add a new idea Subscribe
Status Future consideration
Workspace COBOL Compilers
Categories z/OS
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 21, 2023

RELATED IDEAS

Provide a FUNCTION MAX-LENGTH for the maximum length of self-referencing ODO structures

See this idea on ideas.ibm.com

If a linkage section structure contains one or more ODO items resident in the structure itself, Enterprise COBOL provides no means of determining the maximum length of such a structure for allocation purposes, short of a numeric literal copied from the length of the structure shown in the MAP output. This tends to break when the structure is revised and the literal fails to get updated.

A FUNCTION MAX-LENGTH() would return the maximum length of the structure as seen in the MAP output for ODO cases as well as well as non-ODO cases.

Note that FUNCTION LENGTH-OF (or LENGTH OF) returns the current length of the structure calculated using the values of the ODO items, a process that's undefined if the structure has yet to be allocated.

Idea priority High
  • Admin
    Basil Kanneth
    Reply
    |     Sep 25, 2023

    Hi Mike, yes, you can use Allocate with CICS.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Sep 21, 2023

    Basil, that works in batch, do you know if the COBOL Allocate verb is acceptable in CICS? I do not see it listed as restricted, but I always assumed we should use EXEC CICS GETMAIN?

  • Admin
    Basil Kanneth
    Reply
    |     Sep 21, 2023

    Hi Renaud,

    This idea has yet to be put into plan. We don't have an exact date yet.

    However, in the meantime, we would like to propose a possible workaround:

    If the only use case is for allocation, then using the form of ALLOCATE that allows you to specify the linkage section item directly in the ALLOCATE statement (i.e., no need to specify the max length), should already handle this correctly.

    Example:

    01 g2.

    03 blah pic 9(9) binary.

    03 tab occurs 0 to 10 times depending on blah.

    05 d1 pic x(10).

    05 d2 pic 9(9).

    :

    allocate g2

    The above example will allocate 194 bytes here (4 + 10*19).

    Please consider using the above workaround until the original Idea is put into plan. Thanks.


  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Sep 12, 2023

    Could you tell us when this new feature will be effective?

  • Admin
    Basil Kanneth
    Reply
    |     May 11, 2023

    This is a valid idea and has been accepted. It will be updated once put into plan.

By clicking the "Post Comment" or "Submit Idea" button, you are agreeing to the IBM Ideas Portal Terms of Use.
Do not place IBM confidential, company confidential, or personal information into any field.