Viewing COBOL format props in Seq File Stage

bigpoppa · Post by **bigpoppa** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 12:48 pm

DS 6.0r3 on Solaris
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Here's what I do:
1. Import a COBOL File Def via Designer
2. Load the imported file def into a Sequential File stage
3. Double click on a row in the 'columns' tab on the Sequential File Stage
4. Try to click on the 'COBOL' tab in the Edit Column Meta Data Window. The tab is greyed-out.

Is this a bug? Or expected behavior?

MAT · Post by **MAT** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 1:04 pm

Hi,

I read COBOL files from Server and PX. Depending on where the jobs is built, I have access to the corresponding tab (Server under Server and Parallel under PX). My guess is you can access COBOL tab from Mainframe jobs but I don't have any way to verify it since we do not make mainframe jobs. You should be able to edit anything regarding your metadata from the tab you have access to.

Regards

MAT

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:55 pm

While you didn't say explicitly whether your were creating a server job or a parallel job, I think Mathieu has put his finger on the answer; the COBOL tab is only enabled for mainframe jobs.
The fact that you can import a COBOL FD while in Designer is misleading perhaps but, remember, you can be designing server, parallel and mainframe jobs all in the Designer's MDI, so it has to allow access to all types of metadata. Collections of column definitions are, after all, just collections of column definitions (which is why you could load same into a sequential file stage).

Ray Wurlod
Education and Consulting Services
ABN 57 092 448 518

bigpoppa · Post by **bigpoppa** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 6:27 am

Does this mean that the COBOL field properties that I set, such as 'occurs' etc, are not really processed by DS Server jobs? Ultimately, I am trying to find a good way to get a DS Server job to read COBOL data with occurs statements correctly. Any ideas?

mhester · Post by **mhester** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 10:13 am

If you are attempting to read complex data such as this I would suggest that you use the cff or complex flat file stage. This stage will do everything you require and there is sufficient online help and documentation to help you along the way.

It would be difficult to use the sequential stage to represent or define complex data since the sequential stage does not know anything about complex data.

There is also this ability (cff) within PX to define complex data, although in the current version of the plugin there are issues with the handling of redefines and occurs. This has been fixed, although the release will not be a patch, but rather implemented in the next major release (7.0)

Regards,

Michael Hester