COBOL reserved-word file

For COBOL generation, EGL maintains a predefined (built-in) list of COBOL, SQL, and CICS® reserved words that must not be used as names within a COBOL program. The alias name of a main part (or, in the absence of the alias property, the name of the part itself, truncated to 8 characters) might conflict with a word in the reserved words list. In that case, the EGL generator exits with an error. For non-main parts, if EGL finds a conflict between the part name and a word in the reserved words list, the EGL generator creates an alias for the part name.

In general, you do not need to supplement the predefined list of reserved words. However, in the following situations, you might need to define a reserved words file to provide additional reserved words that the EGL generator should avoid. You might need an additional reserved words file under the following conditions:
  • You are using a newer version of COBOL, DB2®, or CICS® than the version of EGL you own was developed to handle, and a new keyword is introduced by that newer product.
  • There are certain words you do not want used as COBOL variable names.
If necessary, your system administrator can create a reserved words file to provide additions to the predefined list of reserved words. The format of the reserved words file contains two types of records:
Comment statement
A statement with an asterisk (*) in column one.
Reserved word statement
A statement with a word starting in column one. The word extends to the first blank. In addition to specific reserved words, you can use the asterisk (*) as a wild card at the end of a word, as in the following examples:
  • CICS*
  • SQL*
  • XYZ*
When the reserved word ends in an asterisk, any name whose initial characters match the string preceding the asterisk are treated as though they matched a word in the list.

If you create a reserved-word file, set the reservedWord build descriptor option to the fully qualified path name of that file. For more information about EGL reserved words, see the EGL Language Reference.