reading a COBOL file

knappy

Alright, I'm stuck. 🙁

I'm reading in a fixed length file that is in COBOL format. Iwas able to read in the file using

	$buffer = fread($handle,604);

And then split out the values using

	$string1 = substr($buffer, $x,$y);
	echo $string1;

For all the strings that are listed in the copy book as
05 R206-TX-HOME-PHN-NO PIC X(8).

Where i am having difficulty is reading the values like
05 R206-AT-CHGOFF PIC S9(7)V9(2) COMP-3.

I'm trying to unpack() the informatio (if that's what I'm supposed to do with it to display it) But I don't think I'm getting the correct results. I'm using
$string1 = unpack("N",substr($buffer, $x,$y));
foreach ($string1 as $v) {
print "$v";
}

Of course the first argument in the unpack function may not work depending on how many bytes I grab. Any thoughts?

Thanks 🙂

HalfaBee

Looks like you have confused everyone.

Whats unpack() ?
Is each line a fixed length or the file.

What are you trying to display?

I think more info is needed.

Halfabee ( more than half confused )

barand

[man]unpack/man is for binary data and you are reading a text file.

To get the individual lines, use [man]fgets/man or you can use [man]file/man which will put the whole file into an array with each line as an array element.

hth

HalfaBee

I need to update my PHP manual. 🙁

HalfaBee

knappy

I though it would be simple to just read in certain bytes, but all the fields that are computational data (zip, dollar amounts) seem to be packed. So if the filed is 5 digit, I have to grab 3 and unpack it. If the filed is 11, I have to grab 6 and unpack it.

I believe packed data puts two bytes in every one.....