James,

I tried using a plain, garden-variety COBOL OPEN verb to open a TurboImage dataset. The program aborted with a privileged mode violation, just as I expected. 

However, I do not doubt that a COBOL program armed with PM capability could use COBOL I/O verbs to access a TurboIMAGE dataset as if it were a flat file. My point is that you would not get the same results from a COBOL READ as you would from a DBGET, and you would certainly corrupt your database using WRITE, REWRITE and DELETE as if they were DBPUT, DBUPDATE and DBDELETE, respectively. 

So I stand by my answer, as I'm sure you stand by yours. I suppose it depends on whether the question is really, "Is this possible?", or whether it is "Is this a correct procedure?"

--Ken Kirby
  Vanderbilt University



-----Original Message-----
From:   James Trudeau [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Wednesday, May 06, 1998 12:55 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]; 'Ken Kirby'
Subject:        RE: COBOL and TurboIMAGE

Howdy,

Let me repeat myself.  I did this stuff a number of years ago (don't ask me the compiler
or OS versions).  Yes it can be done.

I did it out of curiosity.  Curiostiy/desperation is one thing but IMHO anyone doing it
for any other reason(s) is probably a dang fool : - )
jt

----------
From:  Ken Kirby[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:  Wednesday, May 06, 1998 11:14 AM
To:  [log in to unmask]
Subject:  Re: COBOL and TurboIMAGE

At 02:51 PM 5/5/98 -0500, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>This might be a real dumb question, but :
>
>If I want to access TurboIMAGE data from a COBOL program, do I have
>to use DB* intrinsics or can I do it using the standard COBOL  I/O
>commands ?
>
>TIA.

I think the question Chris is asking is this:

"Does the COBOL compiler provide for the proper reading of TurboIMAGE datasets through the use of COBOL verbs such as OPEN, READ, WRITE and CLOSE?"

The answer to this question is - no. You must use the DB* Intrinsics. 

Perhaps there is some warped way to use PM to force COBOL I/O commands to extract the data, but TurboIMAGE access is not native to the language.

I wish it were so, but it's not.

--Ken Kirby
  Vanderbilt University