10 is EOF, 0 is successful read. Not that it actually matters, your point is perfectly valid. You can use sort off boolean operators thats toggled on based on t

10 is EOF, 0 is successful read. Not that it actually matters, your point is perfectly valid. You can use sort off boolean operators thats toggled on based on the value in variables. Outgoing web requests are usually done via either a program in some other language that you call from the COBOL application, or via DB2s built in functionality by running it as an embedded SQL section in your program. Why the heck web requests are handled by the relational database is.. Well I mean it feels odd, but by doing it that way they added the functionality to both zOS and IBM i at once. And old developers don't have to learn all to much new stuff to do it. Also, while the COBOL program works with a static set of files with static filenames. Those names can point to any file by various overrides done in either JCL on the mainframe or CL on the IBM i/AS400. Regarding the file formats, you can read the file into different working-storage defined variables, so each row doesn't have to be identical field length/position. In short, COBOL is just one part of the solution. Various "scripting" languages play a large part in defining what files go in and out. And none of them are available outside of the actual mainframe/midrange environments. Most data is gathered from relational databases anyway nowdays, and embedded SQL, just like in PHP webpages of yesterdays web, is whats used in newly developed programs. But all in all, yes it's a rather cumbersome language, for any sort of sane string handling you have to revert to embedded SQL. But most problems you have to write programs to solve can usually be broken down into smaller problems. Then just chain programs to handle it. The language itself is usually just a bit of a bother, but the age old programs written 20-30 years ago written by developers of varying degrees of sanity who had no requirements on them to document their work is what makes the job a pain.