how to determine the length of a variable in COBOL?

iknow

For eg: like if a variable is defined as 01 N1 PIC X(20). and a value is moved into it, MOVE 'ASDAS' TO N1. then how to retrieve the length of the N1 variable which is 5? the LENGTH OF gives a result of 20.

sridevi2005 · New User Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 45

Hi,

I think the following code will help u

MOVE FUCNTION LENGTH(str1) TO WS-I
PERFORM UNTIL VARYING WS-J FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL STR1(1: ) = SPACES
OR WS-I = WS-J
DISPLAY WSJ
END-PERFORM

Thanks,
Sridevi

michaelraj · New User Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 44 Location: Bangalore

Hi ,

Try this,

String "ASDAS" Delimited by ' ' into N1 with Pointer ws-count

We may count the number of characters actually moved to the N1 if it is initialized at zero.

Regards,
Mike.

mmwife · Super Moderator Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 1526

*************************************************************
Finding the length of a string using the REVERSE function of LE Cobol
*************************************************************
INSPECT FUNCTION REVERSE(TEXT1) TALLYING L FOR LEADING SPACES
COMPUTE L = LENGTH OF TEXT1 - L

where: L is actual length of text in TEXT1. Note!!! TEXT1 remains unchanged after the operation (i.e. it isn't reversed).