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PERFORM was in the original 1960 COBOL spec -- but attempting to use it recursively was (and may remain) undefined behavior.
by rst 8y ago
PERFORM was in the original 1960 COBOL spec -- but attempting to use it recursively was (and may remain) undefined behavior.
- zerr 8y agoCan't the recursion be implemented explicitly with Stack data structure? (if it's possible to have/implement the stack in COBOL, not sure).
- abrax3141 8y agoCOBOL, and other PLs of that day, were heavily integrated with the ISAM file structure. ISAM a precursor of SQL, and was basically a hash table implemented very efficiently in a file. If you have hash tables, you can do pretty much anything. (Actually, it was better than a hash table. Once you had indexed (I) into the file, you could sequentially read forward (S). The AM is Access Method.)
- flyinghamster 8y agoAh, that makes sense, then. The last time I wrote anything in COBOL was in a class about 35 years ago. ;)