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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!lll-lcc!seismo!rochester!dibble
From: dibble@rochester.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: MIPS to offer COBOL
Message-ID: <24167@rochester.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 25-Jan-87 22:54:34 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.24167
Posted: Sun Jan 25 22:54:34 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Jan-87 02:12:37 EST
References: <14392@amdcad.UUCP> <1275@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> <984@ur-tut.UUCP>
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept., Rochester, NY
Lines: 33
Summary: Emulating PIC for a 4GL

In article <984@ur-tut.UUCP>, tuba@ur-tut.UUCP (Jon Krueger) writes:
> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
> >C is nice, but pictures rival printf's when formating print
> >lines and other boring things.
> 
> For my usual rates, I'll code you a picture(3) library that will look
> and feel like the real thing, interface to your favorite 4GL, and run
> at least as fast on a Unix-based 68000 as the COBOL code on an IBM
> machine costing 10 times as much to buy, operate, and waste programmer
> time on.  Or has somebody already done this?

That would be very impressive!  IBM 370 machines have hardware assists for
formatting numeric output and more powerful instructions than
the 68000 for handling bcd (they call it packed) numbers.

Is the trick here that you are comparing the absolute top-of-the-line
68000 box to the bottom of the IBM mainframe line?  Maybe you have one
of the lobotomized distributed computers in mind?

A version of printf could accept pictures and generate the right output,
but it wouldn't get you the right "look and feel," at least not from
the programmer's viewpoint.

The COBOL move corresponding command is an important part of the "feel"
of PIC output.  I used to use it to compile an output line from fields
out of several records.  I would think it would be difficult to add
move corresponding to a 4GL with a library.

The last thing I want on my Unix machine is a library that supports
COBOL-style PIC format conversion, but I'd love to know how you'd get the
function and the speed.  Especially the speed.

Peter Dibble