Purpose of the DECLARATIVES section

PSS ID Number: Q10362
Article last modified on 11-16-1992

2.00 2.10 2.20 3.00 3.00a 4.00 4.50
MS-DOS

Problem:
   The COBOL DECLARATIVES section for trapping I/O errors does not
appear to be activated. The interrupt 24h I/O error vector is not
altered by a COBOL program with a DECLARATIVES section in it; instead,
I/O errors are handled by COMMAND.COM.

Response:
   The COBOL compiler does not check for Interrupt 24 errors. This is
not part of the ANSI standard. The DECLARATIVES section is used as an
alternate way to handle AT END, INVALID KEY, and various file status
conditions.

Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1992.