Redefine Field name with dot(.) notation

[bprasen]

Hi,
while searching for REDEFINE fields attached with a given statement(Group/Primitive), found it is provided only the field name. This can be an issue if there are multiple fields with the same name in the copybook. Is it possible to provide exact field name with hierarchy with dot(.) notation ?

[yruslan]

Hi, do I understand it right that you are traversing an AST to find if a given field is redefined by another field and, if yes, find that redefined field?

As far as I understand a field can redefine another field only if that field is at the same hierarchical level (same level of nesting) and is consecutive to the field being redefined.

For instance, this is ok:

   10   A    PIC X(5).
   10   B    PIC X(5) REDEFINES A.
   10   C    PIC X(5) REDEFINES A.

But this is incorrect since C does not redefine A:

   10   A    PIC X(5).
   10   B    PIC X(5) REDEFINES A.
   10   C    PIC X(5).
   10   D    PIC X(5) REDEFINES A.

This means that an ambiguity in redefined field names can only occur if there is more than 1 field with the same name at the same level of nesting. But such fields are prohibited by the compiler and even if this was allowed a fully qualified name won't help resolve the ambiguity.

But I'm not sure I understand correctly the issue you are trying to solve. Maybe you can share the piece of code you use for redefined fields searching I can help you with that.

[bprasen]

Hi,
I understand your point. I was working with a copybook like below

01 COMPANY-DETAILS.
05 SEGMENT-ID PIC X(5).
05 COMPANY-ID PIC X(10).
05 STATIC-DETAILS.
10 COMPANY-NAME PIC X(15).
10 ADDRESS PIC X(25).
10 TAXPAYER REDEFINES ADDRESS.
15 TAXPAYER-TYPE PIC X(1).
15 TAXPAYER-STR PIC X(8).
15 TAXPAYER-NUM REDEFINES TAXPAYER-STR PIC 9(8) COMP.
05 CONTACTS REDEFINES STATIC-DETAILS.
10 COMPANY-ID PIC X(17).
10 CONTACT-PERSON REDEFINES COMPANY-ID PIC X(28).
10 PHONE-NUMBER-X PIC X(2).
10 CONTACT-PERSON-X REDEFINES PHONE-NUMBER-X PIC X(2).

in this structure, there are two COMPANY-IDs. So when I am trying to find out Compant-id it is giving me an error like "Multiple fields with name 'COMPANY_ID' found in the copybook. Please specify the exact field using '.' notation.". But as you stated avobe, I can implement some rules to find out correct Copmany-ID. Thanks for your answer.

[yruslan]

If you are using getFieldByName() or getFieldValueByName() to search for COMPANY-ID, you can use a fully qualified name, e.g. COMPANY-DETAILS.COMPANY-ID or CONTACTS.COMPANY-ID.

[bprasen]

Yes, that I was asking as a part of Redefine info of a Statement(Group/Statment) :-)