I did something like that a few years ago. Have the Cobol program open
a message file. The program then sits and waits for records to be
added to the file and proccesses them when they appear. Then use a
timed proccess to fcopy append the incoming file records to the
message file. This allows you the ability to set up your program to
look for special records such as an EOF or Shutdown command that you
can send to the message file when you need to stop processing. I did
this with Transact and radio frequency hand held terminals a few years
ago it worked great.

Gary Nolan
----- Original Message -----
From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2005 10:45 am
Subject: [HP3000-L] Reading Files in COBOL

> Problem:
>
> I have an application on a Windows 2000 server that passes data to
> me (via
> SAMBA) in a HFS directory on the HP3000 system.  Although, maybe not
> important is \Share\Router\Read\yyyymmddhhmmss.
>
> The file name that is put there will be different every time.  It
> will be
> in MMDDYYHHMMSS format.
>
> Every time a transaction on the Windows server is done, I need to
> grab the
> file in a COBOL program that will do something with it.  After I am
> finished with the file, I need to delete it or pick up the next
> availablefile.
>
> There can be several hundreds of these done within a day so having a
> command file or something constantly searching for the next
> available file
> is easy but I will constantly be opening and closing the COBOL
> program to
> process these files which I believe will cause a extreme amount of
> overheadon my HP3000/987 system.
>
> What I would like to do is have a background job running on the
> HP3000 that
> would wake up and pause say every 30 seconds to find a file, do
> somethingwith it (Beechglen (plug) said copy it and delete?), and
> delete it.  Thing
> is, I?m not sure how I can do that in COBOL as far as detecting
> the file.
> After I detect it and copy it, I should be good to go as far as
> the file
> equate is concerned.  I just want to copy the detected file,
> delete it from
> the HSF directory, do something with it, and delete the file.
>
> The reason I am using SAMBA is that it is really neat that you can
> map an
> area off on the HP3000 system and I can write files to the area (e.g.
> \Share\Router\Send\yyyymmddhhmmss) so they can see my files coming
> back at
> them.
>
> Files I am sending back to them should easily be accomplished
> sending a
> file equate through a call to the CICOMMAND.  I think right now.
>
> Any thoughts or help would help.
>
> Thanks
>
> Dave Vogt
> Information Services Manager
> Miller Compressing Company
> Milwaukee, Wisconsin
> [log in to unmask]
>
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