I/O isCOBOL offers some additional features for I/O on files and databases. With isCOBOL, programmers can take advantage of: • Native support for embedded SQL syntax; no precompilers are needed. EXEC SQL SELECT COUNT (*) INTO :rec-count FROM TABLE1 END-EXEC. • National items are supported; data is stored using UTF-16 Big Endian encoding. 77 MY-VAR PIC N(10). • The ability to interact with databases while maintaining standard COBOL statements (see for details). • The ability to associate sequential files with the standard input, output and error. SELECT stdin ASSIGN TO "-S IN" ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL. SELECT stdout ASSIGN TO "-S OUT" ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL. SELECT stderr ASSIGN TO "-S ERR" ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL. • The ability to create PDFs or previews of print files. SELECT pdf-file ASSIGN TO PRINT "-P PDF /usr/docs/print.pdf" ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL. SELECT ptr-prev ASSIGN TO PRINT "-P PREVIEW" ORGANIZATION LINE SEQUENTIAL.
