COBOL File input, numbers separated with space - cobol

Question

I am a newbie of COBOL, I am facing the following problem.
I have a input file with content:
2 3 2 4
4 numbers are in the same row and separated with exactly one space.
the 4 numbers can be in 1 digit, 2 digit and 3 digit
Can I put those 4 numbers to 4 variables with PIC?
such as: PIC XXX XXX XXX XXX (This is not working.)
currently I am using substring to achieve the task, but this is not efficient and messy, is there any other way i can finish the task easily?
Thanks

Answer 1

You can do this by two ways. Number one is to use unstring sentence. Or you can declare a variable level 01 and define in it every variable of the string separately.
For example:
01 WS-FILE.
05 WS-FIELD-01 PIC 9.
05 FILLER PIC X.
05 WS-FIELD-02 PIC 9.
05 FILLER PIC X.
05 WS-FIELD-03 PIC 9.
05 FILLER PIC X.
05 WS-FIELD-04 PIC 9.
05 FILLER PIC X.
And when you read the file use:
READ FILE INTO WS-FILE.

Answer 2

You can use an UNSTRING function (i dont know if you refer to that with substring)
UNSTRING WS-FILE-RECORD DELIMITED BY SPACE
INTO WS-FIELD1
WS-FIELD2
WS-FIELD3
WS-FIELD4
END-UNSTRING
with this if you have:
WS-FILE-RECORD="1 2 3 4"
WS-FIELD1 = "1"
WS-FIELD2 = "2"
WS-FIELD3 = "3"
WS-FIELD4 = "4"
or if you have:
WS-FILE-RECORD="1 22 333 4444"
WS-FIELD1 = "1"
WS-FIELD2 = "22"
WS-FIELD3 = "333"
WS-FIELD4 = "4444"

Answer 3

01 YOUR-NUMBERS.
03 YOUR-NUMBER PIC 9(04) OCCURS 4.
01 INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS PIC 9(01).
01 YOUR-RECORD.
03 YOUR-RECORD-4.
05 YOUR-RECORD-4-NUM PIC X(04).
05 FILLER PIC X(01).
05 YOUR-RECORD-4-REST.
07 FILLER PIC X(09).
07 YOUR-RECORD-4-END PIC X(05).
03 YOUR-RECORD-3 REDEFINES YOUR-RECORD-4.
05 YOUR-RECORD-3-NUM PIC X(03).
05 FILLER PIC X(01).
05 YOUR-RECORD-3-REST.
07 FILLER PIC X(11).
07 YOUR-RECORD-3-END PIC X(04).
03 YOUR-RECORD-2 REDEFINES YOUR-RECORD-4.
05 YOUR-RECORD-2-NUM PIC X(02).
05 FILLER PIC X(01).
05 YOUR-RECORD-2-REST.
07 FILLER PIC X(13).
07 YOUR-RECORD-2-END PIC X(03).
03 YOUR-RECORD-1 REDEFINES YOUR-RECORD-4.
05 YOUR-RECORD-1-NUM PIC X(01).
05 FILLER PIC X(01).
05 YOUR-RECORD-1-REST.
07 FILLER PIC X(15).
07 YOUR-RECORD-1-END PIC X(02).
MOVE SPACES TO YOUR-RECORD.
READ YOUR-RECORD.
PERFORM 0100-FIND-NUMBERS
VARYING INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS
FROM 1
TO 4.
0100-FIND-NUMBERS.
IF YOUR-RECORD-4-NUM IS NUMERIC
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-4-NUM TO YOUR-NUMBER(INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS)
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-4-REST TO YOUR-RECORD-4
MOVE SPACES TO YOUR-RECORD-4-END
ELSE
IF YOUR-RECORD-3-NUM IS NUMERIC
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-3-NUM TO YOUR-NUMBER(INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS)
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-3-REST TO YOUR-RECORD-4
MOVE SPACES TO YOUR-RECORD-3-END
ELSE
IF YOUR-RECORD-2-NUM IS NUMERIC
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-2-NUM TO YOUR-NUMBER(INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS)
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-2-REST TO YOUR-RECORD-4
MOVE SPACES TO YOUR-RECORD-2-END
ELSE
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-1-NUM TO YOUR-NUMBER(INDEX-YOUR-NUMBERS)
MOVE YOUR-RECORD-1-REST TO YOUR-RECORD-4
MOVE SPACES TO YOUR-RECORD-1-END.
Here's a way to do it. Maybe not a good way. Maybe not an efficient way. Maybe not an easy way. But certainly a way that doesn't involve string/unstring - using PIC only. ish.

Answer 4

You could create a little state machine that ran through and calculated every number as it goes. There are many advantages to approaching things on a character by character basis for parsing. The code is usually very simple, especially with a simple regex like number or whitespace.
Identification Division.
Program-ID. PARSENUM.
Data Division.
Working-Storage Section.
01 II comp-5 pic s9(8) value 0.
01 Num-Val comp-5 pic s9(8) value 0.
01 In-Str pic x(80).
01 In-Ch pic 9.
01 pic x(1).
88 In-Number value 'N'.
88 In-Whitespace value 'W'.
Procedure Division.
*> Fake up some data...
Move '1 212 303 44 5678 6 75 888 976' to In-Str
*> Parse Numbers
Set In-Whitespace to true
Perform varying II from 1 by 1
until II > Length of In-Str
If In-Str (II:1) is numeric
Move In-Str (II:1) to In-Ch
Evaluate true
when In-Whitespace
Compute Num-Val = In-Ch
Set In-Number to true
when In-Number
Compute Num-Val = (Num-Val * 10) + In-Ch
End-Evaluate
Else
If In-Number
Display 'Found Number: ' Num-Val
Set In-Whitespace to true
End-If
End-If
End-Perform
Goback.
You should get output that looks like:
Found Number: +0000000001
Found Number: +0000000212
Found Number: +0000000303
Found Number: +0000000044
Found Number: +0000005678
Found Number: +0000000006
Found Number: +0000000075
Found Number: +0000000888
Found Number: +0000000976