PERCON stores various internal information which the user can access by means of keywords. These keywords can be inserted in output records or in print pages as required, or used as comparison criteria. PERCON provides this information multiply for both input and output files.
The counters supplied by PERCON are either incremented or modified, e.g. the record counter of the input file is incremented after a record is read, while the record counter of the output file is incremented after the record is written. The counters are initialized with 0. This must be taken into account when these keywords are referenced in statements. The following keywords are available:
Meaning | Keyword 1 | |
SET-GROUP-ATTRIBUTES | SELECT-INPUT- | |
Record length | RECORD-LENGTH | RECLEN |
Block counter | BLOCK-COUNTER | BLKCNT |
Byte counter | BYTE-COUNTER | BYTCNT |
Record counter | RECORD-COUNTER | RECCNT |
Page counter | PAGE-COUNTER | Cannot be specified |
Date | DATE | |
Time | TIME | |
1The format and length of a keyword depends on the PERCON statement under which the keyword is used. For further information, refer to the syntax description of the corresponding statement.
Editing of keywords with output length greater than or equal to 1
When editing keywords (with the exception of DATE and TIME) in the statements SET-RECORD-MAPPING and SET-GROUP-ATTRIBUTES, the minimum value for the OUTPUT-LENGTH operand is 1.
However, OUTPUT-LENGTH=1 in conjunction with output format DECIMAL or SIGNED-DECIMAL results in a semantical error (message PER0007); a minimum output length of 2 is required for these formats to accommodate the sign.
PERCON makes sure that no valid positions are truncated when editing a keyword (exception: SET-PAGE-LAYOUT). If the specified output length is insufficient and a keyword value to be edited does not fit in the output field, the conversion step is aborted and message PER0042 is output.
Note about the GROUP-COUNTER keyword
Counters are run while grouping input records. These counters are known as group counters (see SET-GROUP-ATTRIBUTES statement on "SET-GROUP-ATTRIBUTES ").
GROUP-COUNTER is available for group levels 1 to 8 of every output medium. Each counter is defined unambiguously by its link name and by a group level.
The counters are preset to 0 and their readings are changed under the following circumstances:
Counters set to 1
After the group leader has been written or when GROUP-HEADER=*NONE if the criterion for writing the group leader is given.Counters incremented by 1
After an input record has been read if the criterion of a group break is not met.