Converting programs that change the program mask

When a VS COBOL II program calls an assembler program that changes the program mask (for example, uses an SPM instruction), the program mask is restored after the call to the assembler program.

With Enterprise COBOL, the program mask is not restored. Thus, if you change the program mask in your assembler program, you must restore it before returning to the COBOL program. Failure to restore the program mask could result in undetected data errors, such as fixed-point overflow, decimal overflow, exponent underflow, and significance exceptions.