You can use the INITIALIZE command.  This will move spaces or zeroes
depending on the pic.

Later


Ron Horner
HP3000 Senior Programmer/Analyst
Administrative Management Group
[log in to unmask]


        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Cary A Marshall [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Sent:   Wednesday, December 16, 1998 6:07 PM
        To:     [log in to unmask]
        Subject:        01 Level Initialization in COBOL

        Hello Everyone,

        I'd like to initialize the working storage for a file area in a
COBOL
        program which contains numeric and alphanumeric fields. It's
been a while
        since I've worked with COBOL, but I thought that if you
initialized the file
        at the 01 level, then values at the 02, 03, etc levels would be
properly
        initialized.  Can this be done?  If so, how?  I've been told "no
way", but I
        seem to remember doing so by moving low-values or spaces or ....
to the 01
        level.

        TIA

        Cary Marshall