EFD Directives

EFD directives are special comments that allow for the customization of the generation of the EFD file when the -efd or -efc compiler options are used. There are three syntaxes to specify an EFD directive.

Syntax 1:

$EFD directive-name [=directive-value]

Syntax 2:

*(( EFD directive-name [=directive-value] ))

The $ and the * must be in the comment area, that is column 7 in ANSI source format and column 1 in Terminal source format.

If the source code is written in Free format, EFD directives can appear at any column with the following syntax.

Syntax 3:

*>(( EFD directive-name [=directive-value] ))

The directive must appear above the field or the file that you want to customize in the FILE SECTION of the source code.

Note: no spaces are allowed between the comment symbol and the couple of parenthesis. If spaces are present, the directive is treated as a standard comment and doesn’t have effects.

Multiple EFD directives can be distributed on multiple lines as follows:

$EFD ALPHA $EFD NAME=field1  03 fd1-field1 pic 9(5).

or merged in a single line as follows:

$EFD ALPHA, NAME=field1   03 fd1-field1 pic 9(5).

Note: For compatibility with Acucobol-GT, the XFD keyword is supported. $XFD is synonymous with $EFD, while *((XFD is synonymous with *((EFD.

Warning: EFD directives are ignored in Object and Factory methods. They can be used only in standard programs.