COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs

Data Fundamentals
HP COBOL Manual for TNS and TNS/R Programs—522555-006
4-13
Tables
One-Dimensional Tables With Variable Number of Elements
You can specify a fixed or variable number of occurrences of a table element. An
element of a table of the latter form is called a variable-occurrence data item. Because
the number of elements in such a table can vary during the execution of a program, the
size of each data structure that contains the table can also vary. Such data structures
are said to have a variable size.
Multidimensional Tables
The elements of a table can be elementary items or groups of subordinate structures,
some of which can also be tables. In Example 4-5, TOTAL-B is a table subordinate to
the 1-dimensional table named TOTAL. This means TOTAL-B is a 2-dimensional table;
each reference to TOTAL-B must have exactly two subscripts (except in SEARCH
statements and some intrinsic functions, which do not allow subscripts). The first
subscript specifies the element of the TOTAL table, and the second subscript specifies
the element of the TOTAL-B table within that element of TOTAL.
Example 4-3. One-Dimensional Table With Fixed Number of Elements
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 MONTH-NAME-TABLE.
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "January".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "February".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "March".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "April".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "May".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "June".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "July".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "August".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "September".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "October".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "November".
05 FILLER PICTURE X(9) VALUE "December".
01 MONTH-NAMES REDEFINES MONTH-NAME-TABLE.
05 MONTH-NAME OCCURS 12 TIMES PICTURE X(9).
Example 4-4. One-Dimensional Table With Variable Number of Elements
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 ACTIVITY-TABLE-RECORD.
03 ACTIVITY-COUNT PICTURE 99.
03 ACTIVITY-TABLE OCCURS 10 TO 20 TIMES
DEPENDING ON ACTIVITY-COUNT
INDEXED BY SAVE-INX-1
SAVE-INX-2.
05 ACTIVITY-ENTRY PICTURE 999.