Re: RW on Working-Storage (was: J4 - presentation/discussion on "Future of the COBOL Standard"

I can certainly understand the confussion but calling something "static
data" 
(and defining what that means does NOT mean that the storage is allocated 
statically (which was your statement).  The section that you quoted from
is 
under

  "8.6.3 Automatic, initial, and static internal items"

The first paragraph explains what all of this is about, i.e.

"Each internal item has one of the three persistence attributes:
automatic, 
initial, or static. The designation of automatic, initial, and static
items 
relates to their persistence and the persistence of their contents during
the 
execution of the run unit."

Notice inparticular that for "automatic" data, it says,
  "Their storage is allocated and set to initial state each time the
runtime 
element containing them is activated."

For "static" items, the statement is quite different.  It says,

"They are allocated no later than immediately before initialization"

Which I think (to me) is NOT what you said, i.e.

" The standard says working-storage is allocated statically."


-- 
Bill Klein
 wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
"Robert" <no@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:lr3ht3pi8lejvamj0qjgpfdbdqo88336s6@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:21:03 GMT, "William M. Klein" 
> <wmklein@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>> "Robert" <no@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>> news:38kft3t3h52mm32b1vekgqe1qu98l7l1la@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:01:25 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
>>>> <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>><snip>
>>> The standard says working-storage is allocated
>>> statically.
>>>
>>
>>Robert,
>>   Can you point me to where in "the Standard" ('85 or '02) that it says
this?
>>(Certainly it is NOT true in the '02 Standard where you specifically can
use 
>>the
>>ALLOCATE/FREE statements to dynamically get storage in Working-Storage 
>>Section.)
>>To the best of my knowledge, no previous ANSI/ISO Standard ever said
this
>>either.  In fact, as I recall, when, where, and how storage was
allocated by
>>some vendors differed, for example, for 01-levels and 77-levels.
>
> 8.6.3 of the 2002 standard
>
> Data items and file connectors defined in the working-storage,
communication, 
> or file
> section of a source element that is not an initial program are static
items. 
> Also, screen
> item attributes in a source element that is not an initial program are
treated 
> as static
> items. These items are set to their initial state each time the runtime 
> element or object
> containing them is set to its initial state, as described in
14.5.2.1.2.1, 
> Initial state,
> and in 14.5.2.2, Initial state of object data. They are allocated no
later 
> than
> immediately before initialization and persist to the first of the
> following:
> - the end of the run unit,
>
> A based entry is a data description entry in the working-storage
section, 
> local-storage
> section, or linkage section that is described with a BASED clause. A
based 
> entry is not
> initially associated with an actual data item. An association is
established 
> linking the
> based entry to actual data when its implicit data-address pointer is
assigned 
> the address
> of an existing data item or assigned the address of storage obtained
with an 
> ALLOCATE
> statement. This association establishes a based data item.