Spooler Programmer's Guide

Using the Spooler Interface Procedures

Spooler Programmer’s Guide—522287-002

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COBOL Spooling

Programs written in COBOL can spool their data at level 2 or 3 in the same manner as

a TAL program. COBOL users typically use the spooling facilities provided by COBOL.

See the COBOL85 Manual for more information.

COBOL Spooling—Level 1

Level-1 spooling from COBOL is not supported.

COBOL Spooling—Levels 2 and 3

To spool from COBOL, use one of the COBOL utility routines:



COBOLSPOOLOPEN permits level-2 spooling for COBOL users.



COBOL85^SPECIAL^OPEN permits level-2 or level-3 spooling for COBOL85

users.



COBOL_SPECIAL_OPEN permits level-2 or level-3 spooling.

Use any of the above procedures to perform both the OPEN and SPOOLSTART

operations. Following the OPEN, write the data to the collector as follows:

1. Using a SELECT statement, assign a COBOL file descriptor name to the process

name of the collector. For example, if $SPL is a collector, the Input-Output Section

of the Environment Division would contain the statement:

SELECT SPOOLER ASSIGN "$SPL".

2. In the File Section of the Data Division, use a file definition (FD) to specify the

record to be associated with writes to the spooler:

FD SPOOLER RECORD CONTAINS 80 CHARACTERS LABEL RECORDS ARE

OMITTED. 01 SPOOL-LINE PIC X(80).

3. In the Procedure Division, open the spooler as the output file:

OPEN OUTPUT SPOOLER.

4. Write each line of data to the spooler. For example, if the data to be spooled is in

DATA-LINE, the WRITE statement for the above FD would look like the following:

WRITE SPOOL-LINE FROM DATA-LINE.

Example 2-4 is an example of a program that performs COBOL spooling. A

specification in the Working Storage Section determines whether level-2 or level-3

spooling is used.