Re: [open-cobol-list] Which formatting convention to use?

[Duke Normandin]

On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, David Essex wrote:

> Duke Normandin wrote:

[snip]

> > BTW, I still have not found an explanation of how the free format
> > differs from the fixed. Is it only Col 1-6 that is done away with?
>
> Well there are several variations.
> OC follows what is defined the 2002 standard.
>
> Here is a brief outline.
> The columns 1-6, 73-80, legacy requirements have been removed.
> Colum 72 no longer has special meaning.
> Areas A and B are no longer required.
> The special characters in columns 7 have been removed or replaced.

Excellent!

> Some examples ...
>
> The line comment character '*' in columns 7 has been replaced by the
> to-the-end-of-the-line comment string '*>'.
> While some compilers will allow a character '*' in columns 1,
> to denote a line comment, OC will flag it as an error.
>
> For multi-line value clauses one can use concatenation ('&') (ex. value
> 'abc' & 'cde').

Is there a "line length" limit? Or are you referring to hacker-imposed
line formatting? So for multi-line you would do:
................................'abc' &
'cde'

or

................................'abc'
& 'cde'

????

-- 
duke