File Handling in COBOL File: A file is a collection of data related to a set of entities and typically exists on a magnetic tape

or a disk. We refer file as PS in Mainframe environment. In file data is organized as records. Each record is divided into set of fields. For example data related to employee file which consists of employee ID, employee name, employee Account. 01 WS-EMP-REC. 02 WS-EMP-ID 02 WS-EMP-NAME 02 WS-EMP-ACCT

PIC X(07). PIC X(20). PIC X(06).

In this above file data is organized as multiple records each consists of 33 bytes. Data name WS-EMP-REC is referred as record. WS-EMP-ID, WS-EMP-NAME and WS-EMP-ACCT is referred as Fields. Cumulative size of all fields is considered as record length. A file can be classified as fixed or variable length files. In fixed length file, size of all records must be same but in variable length file record length can be vary upon some fields which are not common. The above referred WS-EMP-REC is an example for fixed length file. Files are further classified into 3 types. 1. SEQUENTIAL ORGANIZATION 2. INDEX SEQUENTIAL ORGANIZATION 3. RELATIVE ORGANIZATION Sequential organization: In mainframe environment we have 2 types of sequential files. 1. Flat file (NON-VSAM Sequential file) 2. Entry sequential data set (VSAM ESDS) Both type of files created using different type of Storage organization. Sequential files: The records are stored in the file in the same order in which they are entered. Here, the records can be accessed only sequentially. To process any record, one has to read all its preceding records. Further, records cannot be inserted or deleted. Sequential files are simplest to handle, they are highly inflexible as they do not facilitate insertion and deletion of records. File opened with Extend Mode appends the writing records at the end of the file. In COBOL program there is no much difference between these two types. If you are accessing ESDS VSAM file,

then in COBOL program should coded like this. SELECT FILE ASSIGN TO AS-DDNAME. Actually DD name matches with JCL DD Name. But in COBOL Program DDNAMEs should be prefixed with AS- (In case of VSAM ESDS file) . If you are not doing that then an S213 ABEND might occur when attempting to open data set. INDEX SEQUENTIAL ORGANIZATION: Records in this file are stored based on a key field which is part of record and this is also called as index. Records in this file are accessible in sequential , dynamic & random mode. An index sequential file is conceptually made up of two files, a data file and an index file. Though the records are stored in the order in which they are entered, a sorted index is maintained which relates the key value to the position of the record in the file and hence provides a way to access the records both sequentially and randomly. RELATIVE ORGANIZATION: This file is divided into fixed number of slots each slot has one record. This is identified as relative record number. The access method stores and retrieves a record, based on its relative record number. Records can be accessed as sequentially or randomly or dynamically. This relative files faster access compared to other 2 organizations. But if some of the intermediate records are missing, they occupy space.

File declaration in COBOL Program: To make use of files in COBOL program starts in FILE-CONTROL in ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. SELECT [OPTIONAL]logical-file-name ASSIGN TO physical-file-name. [; RESERVE integer {AREA, AREAS}] [; ORGANIZATION IS SEQUENTIAL] [; ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL] [; FILE STATUS IS data-name] For example... SELECT EMPFILE ASSIGN TO EMPFILEO. Here in COBOL Program we refer this file as EMPFILE but physically there is no file exists with this name. For any kind of operation against the file inside the program, make sure you use Logical name only i.e. EMPFILE. Above sentence EMPFILEO is a mapping that connects from logical file to physical file. It means whatever operations we do in COBOL program against the logical file EMPFILE those will be reflected on Physical file.

In JCL...This file is referred as //EMPFILEO DD DSN=DG11.CAPHYD.EMPHYD

Physically data stored in DG11.CAPHYD.EMPHYD in system. Operations against EMPFILE will be reflected in DG11.CAPHYD.EMPHYD. You must specify SELECT OPTIONAL for those input files that are not necessarily present each time the object program is executed. Files with OPTIONAL option can be opened using INPUT,I-O, EXTEND mode.

RESERVE integer {AREA, AREAS} RESERVE 2 AREAS this instructs system about allocation of buffers while processing large files stored on disk or tapes, it is inefficient to read or write single record at a time. Instead, the usual practice is to group a number of consecutive records to form what is known as a physical record or a block the number of records in a block is termed as the blocking factor. There are two advantages of blocking logical records into a physical record. Firstly, it results in saving the I/O time required for processing a file and secondly it results in saving the storage space for a file. For example to search for a record file has to read sequentially, if each record is reading from Disk at a time which is time consuming in order to speed the access of records, a couple records are read from DISK and keep in intermediate storage called buffer. For sequential access allocation of large block sizes faster the access. For random access a small block size faster the access of records. ORGANIZATION IS SEQUENTIAL: It describes the file organization. For sequential files ORGANIZATION IS SEQUENTIAL For Indexed files ORGANIZATION IS INDEXED. For relative files ORGANIZATION IS RELATIVE. ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL: This sentence identifies the in which mode the file is going to be accessed. For sequential access For random access For Dynamic access ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL ACCESS MODE IS RANDOM ACCESS MODE IS DYNAMIC

Dynamic access is a combination of random and sequential access.

FILE STATUS IS data-name: File status is used to identify the status of each operation that is performed against the file. For instance. FILE STATUS IS WS-STATUS. This WS-STATUS data name declares explicitly in Working storage section. 01 WS-STATUS PIC X(02).

After performing each operation on file it is good practice to check the file status code whether the operation was successful or not, based on this appropriate action is performed. In file handling 00 is identified as successful execution. FILE STATUE 00 10 22 23 Meaning operation sucessful End of record Duplicate key Record Not Found

For more file status code click here

File record description is declared in FILE SECTION. In file section FD EMPFILE [; RECORD CONTAINS integer-1 CHARACTERS] [; BLOCK CONTAINS integer-2 {RECORDS, CHARACTERS}] [; DATA {RECORD IS, RECORDS ARE} data-name-1 [, data-name-2] . . .] 01 WS-EMP-REC. 02 WS-EMP-ID 02 WS-EMP-NAME 02 WS-EMP-ACCT PIC X(07). PIC X(20). PIC X(06).

FD is abbreviated from FILE DESCRIPTION. The RECORD CONTAINS clause specifies the size of the logical records. Here RECORD CONTAINS 33 CHARCTERS The BLOCK CONTAINS clause specifies the size of the physical records. If the records in the file are not blocked, BLOCK CONTAINS clause can be omitted. When it is omitted, the compiler assumes that records are not blocked. Even if each physical record contains only one complete logical record, coding BLOCK CONTAINS 1 RECORD would result in fixed blocked records. The DATA RECORD clause specifies the record names defined for the file. Here DATA RECORD IS WS-EMP-REC.