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cobol

COBOL's EVALUATE: How to have an empty WHEN OTHER clause?

EVALUATE MyValue
WHEN 1
    DISPLAY "My value is 1"
WHEN 2
    DISPLAY "My value is 2"
WHEN OTHER
* Actually I don't need to do anything
END-EVALUATE

I think to have read somewhere that a COBOL application will crash for an EVALUATE where the WHEN clauses do not cover the value of the evaluated variable, if there is no WHEN OTHER statement present. So, in order to avoid the crash, I wanted to add this empty WHEN OTHER.

Under which circumstances is this necessary, and if so, is this approach correct?

Solution

  • Under which circumstances is this necessary

    It is definitely necessary if the compiler ist configured to abort if the when other statement ist missing. ;-)

    Otherwise, in my opinion it is good practice to programm an when other statement even if it only takes a continue.