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

On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:38:35 -0700 (PDT), Richard <riplin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>On Mar 14, 6:37 pm, Robert <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>> >If my program, loaded and running, CALLs a subroutine for the first
>> >then it will create a new working-storage for that. When I CANCEL it
>> >will destroy that area and make it available for reuse by another.
>>
>> If you're talking about dynamic load, the first call is program load
time. The first call
>> after cancel is another load.
>>
>> >This could happen even if the program was linked so that the program
>> >code loaded with the run unit.
>>
>> No it doesn't. We went over this a month ago, when we discussed
ELF-style linking (loaded
>> with the run unit) of Fujitsu programs. In that case, CANCEL did
nothing, in violation of
>> the standard. The CANCELled program was NOT reinitialized. Now you are
claiming it is.
>
>No, I am claiming that it _could_, just as my words _actually_ say.

It could, and it should to be compliant with the standard. I first assumed
it did. I was
saddened when evidence showed it did not.

>If the dll or .so is linked so that it loads at the same time as the
>run-unit then the W-S area for the programs that are in the dll or .so
>don't need to be created until the program is first CALLed. This is
>because the W-S is part of the run-unit but the code is part of
>the .so.

Theoretically true. In practice, W-S is described at compile time and
allocated at program
load time. 

People mistakenly say W-S is allocated at compile time. That's impossible
because the
program might be executed on another machine or years after compilation.

>That is, the initialisation is only required at the time when the
>program in the library is CALLed for the first time. It is at this
>point that the W-S is allocated and initialised. There may be several
>or dozens of programs in a dll or .so, only a few of them actually
>being called in a particular run. As the .so is _shared_ with other
>run-units the W-S for those programs cannot be within the .so, they
>are created as required in the run-unit itself.

Do you know how Unix and Windows do it? Is W-S allocated (per process) and
initialized
when the process starts, or at the time of the first call? I honestly
don't know. My guess
is that it's done at load time. It wouldn't be hard to find out.