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selectstdincobolsysin

Read STDIN (SYSIN) in COBOL


I want to read the lines out of STDIN (aka SYSIN) in COBOL. For now I just want to print them out so that I know I've got them. From everything I'm reading it looks like this should work:

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. APP.

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.

    SELECT SYSIN ASSIGN TO DA-S-SYSIN ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL.

DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.

FD SYSIN.
01 ln PIC X(255).
    88 EOF VALUE HIGH-VALUES.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    OPEN INPUT SYSIN
    READ SYSIN
      AT END SET EOF TO TRUE
    END-READ
    PERFORM UNTIL EOF
        DISPLAY ln
        READ SYSIN
            AT END SET EOF TO TRUE
        END-READ
    END-PERFORM
    CLOSE SYSIN
    STOP RUN.

That compiles (using open-cobol and cobc -x), but running it I get:

libcob: File does not exist (STATUS = 35) File : ''

What am I doing wrong?


Solution

  • The following was suggested to me on the OpenCOBOL forums.

    SELECT SYSIN ASSIGN TO KEYBOARD ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL.
    

    It's the keyword KEYBOARD that makes it work.

    Apparently DISPLAY is a similar word for STDOUT, but I have not tested that.