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[kishorebodipati]

Dear all,

What was the disadvantage of INITIALIZE in COBOL?

Regards,
Kishore

[kolusu]

kishorebodipati,

when you use an INITIALIZE statement at the group level, cobol converts it into series of move statements at fields level. The INITIALIZE statement sets selected categories of data fields to predetermined values. It is functionally equivalent to one or more MOVE
statements. If you are using it repeatedly for over a million times there should be decrease of performance.

It does not make any difference if you are using initialize for individual items.on ther hand it is easier to maintain.

In order to speed it up initialize is, first you can Initialize the 01 level record one time at the beginning of the program and move it to it to another 01 level variable. Now every time you want to initialize move the saved 01 level to the 01 level variable.

Hope this helps...

Kolusu
_________________
Kolusu
www.linkedin.com/in/kolusu

[kishorebodipati]

Hi Kolusu,

Thanks for your Detailed clarification.

Kishore Bodipati.

[kok328]

As I recall, alphanumeric fields are set to spaces and numeric fields are set to low-values. If you plan to send the file with FTP or IND$FILE download, the low-values will screw up the transmission.