Assignment name for data-names and environment variables

If an environment variable or data-name is specified for the assignment name, the value of the data-name or the environment variable is processed as described below.

Format: environment variable and data-name values

Read syntax diagramSkip visual syntax diagramfile-system-ID- system-file-name( alt-index-file-name-1,alt-index-file-name-2)
The value in data-name-9 or the environment variable is evaluated each time that an OPEN statement for the corresponding COBOL file is executed. If the value does not contain any hyphens, the entire string is treated as file name information. File name information can be a single system file-name, or a single system file-name followed by a list of alternate index file-names, or a concatenation of system file-names that are separated by colons. For each of these alternatives, each system file-name can be qualified by a path name. If the value contains one or more hyphens with at least one character after the leftmost hyphen, and the string to the left of the leftmost hyphen meets all the following criteria, the value is interpreted as file-system-ID, followed by file name information:
  • The string consists of three or more characters.
  • The first (leftmost) three characters are alphanumeric (A-Z, a-z, or 0-9).
  • The first character is alphabetic (A-Z or a-z).
file-system-ID
The first three characters of file-system-ID, folded to uppercase, are interpreted as the file-system ID, subject to validation at run time. The value of a file-system ID that is specified at run time overrides any file-system ID that is specified in the user-defined word of assignment-name-1.
file name information
One of the three forms of file name information. For information about specifying alternate indexes, see "Specifying alternate indexes" under Assignment name for user-defined words and literals.

The examples in the following table assume that runtime option FILESYS has been set to STL, and thus the file-system ID defaults to STL.

Table 1. Assignment name for data-names and environment variables
Environment variable value or data-name value File-system ID System file-name
my-fyle STL my-fyle
abc/my-fyle ABC (invalid) fyle
payroll-fyle PAY (invalid) fyle
rsd-payroll-file RSD payroll-file
\\Strange (...) name! STL \Strange (...) name!
Db2-File1 Db2 File1
./Db2-File2 STL ./Db2-File2
sfs-/.:/cics/sfs/svr/F1 SFS F1 (on SFS server svr)
STL-/.:/cics/sfs/svr/F1 SFS (Invalid path)
stl-file1:file2 STL file1 and file2 (concatenated)

For more information about identifying files, see Identifying files in the COBOL for Linux® on x86 Programming Guide.

For more information about file concept and terminology, see File concepts and terminology in the COBOL for Linux on x86 Programming Guide.