[open-cobol-list] Problem with pointers

[David Korn]

On Little Endian machines, the following program does not work correctly:

====================cut here====================================
       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. PROG28.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  WK-DATA.
           03   DK-VAR1         PIC 9(9) COMP.
           03   DK-VAR2         PIC 9(9) COMP.
           03   DK-PTR          POINTER.
           03   DK-VAL  REDEFINES  DK-PTR PIC S9(9) COMP.
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
           SET DK-PTR TO ADDRESS OF DK-VAR1.
           DISPLAY 'DK-PTR=' DK-PTR.
           DISPLAY 'DK-VAL=' DK-VAL.
           ADD 4 TO DK-VAL.
           DISPLAY 'DK-PTR=' DK-PTR.
           DISPLAY 'DK-VAL=' DK-VAL.
           GOBACK.
====================cut here====================================

The redefine allows the pointer to be treated as an integer but
because of byteswapping the two do not have the same representation.
Using COMP-5 for the redefines instead of COMP would fix this problem.
However, this seems to happen hundreds of times throughout the 3 million
lines of Cobol I am trying to port, so it would be nice if the
compiler automatically treated a redefines for a pointer to be COMP-5
rathern than COMP. 

Can this be changed?  If not, can you let me know where the change
would have to be made?

David Korn
address@hidden