Re: [open-cobol-list] newbie alert : cobol : 85 : data management : question

[J Martin Rushton]

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On 06/11/14 19:29, john Culleton wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2014 09:19:45 +0530 Mayuresh Kathe
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> hello,
>> 
>> how does cobol, and by virtue of it's standards adherence,
>> open-cobol, manage data?
>> 
>> as i'd mentioned in a previous email, i am working on a
>> self-funded project to use modern computing systems for
>> initiating and sustaining social change in rural india.
>> 
>> i had been to one of the regions i intend to adopt for the pilot,
>> and have found the following needs; 1. land record management, 2.
>> population record management, 3. medical history management, 4.
>> criminal record management, 5. produce transaction management.
>> 
>> how would i be able to apply cobol-85 to bring this to fruition? 
>> i definitely do not wish to use an 'rdbms', and certainly cannot
>> afford a mainframe. is there any mechanism within open-cobol
>> which would facilitate record management using in-memory
>> datasets, which i believe are more efficient than approaching the
>> disk for every request.
>> 
>> hope my questions are on target per the agenda of this list.
>> else, i apologize for the deviation.
>> 
>> best regards,
>> 
>> ~mayuresh
>> 
>> 
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>>
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> 
> COBOL handles data files in several formats including line
> sequential for text files. My favorite however is indexed
> sequential, a standard cobol format that goes back many decades. It
> allows for one primary and multiple secondary keys to each record.
> 
> 
> The Open Cobol manual is available for free download. I suggest you
> read it for a better understanding of the language. It is both a 
> technical manual and a tutorial.
> 
> If you wish to manipulate data completely in memory then data
> tables can be used. But I don't believe the gain in efficiency is
> worth using that approach. Modern computers can handle data 
> swiftly. And the Cobol indexed sequential file format allows access
> to a relatively small index file which then points directly to the
> record sought on hard disk. Speed of execution is seldom an issue
> in today's world.
> 
> For an example of a commercial grade suite of programs in Cobol I
> recommend the ACAS suite. (Applewood Computers Accounting System).
> 
> There are plenty of Cobol tutorials on line including one on
> Youtube by Simranjut Singh. Please read or watch  a few if you
> haven't already.
> 
Hi Mayuresh,

I know you said you "definitely do not wish to use an 'rdbms'", but
have you considered SQLite?  Unlike other SQL databases there is no
separate database daemon to run, it is just accessed via a library as
if it were a simple extension to the language's I/O subsystem.

The documentation only talks in terms of C and C++ interfaces, but
there is no theoretical reason why it can't be called from any other
language if you take care with the calling conventions.  It is the
next logical step up from ISAM and brings with it a CLI access method
for database access and loading.

See: http://www.sqlite.org/docs.html for the main documentation page
and http://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html for a discussion of when it
is appropriate to use it.
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