Program-address-identifier
General Format
Syntax Rules
- Identifier-1 must of of category alphanumeric or national.
- Literal-1 must be an alphanumeric or national literal.
- Program-prototype-name-1 must be a program prototype specified in the Repository paragraph.
- This identifier format must not be specified as a receiving operand.
General Rules
- Program-address-identifier creates a unique data item of class pointer and category program-pointer that contains the address
of a program identified by one of the following:
- the content of the data item referenced by identifier-1
- the value of literal-1
- program-prototype-name-1.
If identifier-1 or literal-1 is specified, COBOL Words in the chapter Concepts of the COBOL Language describes how this value is used to identify the referenced program.
- The program may be written in COBOL or in another language. For a COBOL program, the address is that of the outermost program identified by the externalized program-name in its Program-ID paragraph.
- When program-prototype-name-1 is specified, the program-address-identifier has the characteristics of a program-pointer restricted to program-prototype-name-1.
- If the runtime system cannot locate the program, the value of the address-identifier is the predefined address NULL.