Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,
We are using a shell script which is called from COBOL program. Here the program works fine till we are using MicroFocus(MF) COBOL 4 and UNIX AIX 5.3.
Recently we have upgraded to MicroFocus(MF) COBOL 5.1 but same AIX version. now the shell script not working as expected.

The shell script does the following:

Code:

grep -l "some_value" $Dir_name* > $File_name

It should return 0 if its successful and 2 if there is any error. This is coming perfect when we execute it from sample cobol program in MF COBOL 5.1, but not from our existing cobol program which was working till before upgrade. Also shell script is working good if we execute as standalone script.

Could any one help me where it might gone wrong here?

Kindly let me know if further information is required.

Thanks & Regards,
Venkatesh S

Well extracting a bit of code from a script isnt of much help for we do not know what makes (it) return a value such as 2 or 0...
If its a script and you havent changed or upgraded the OS then the result should not be affected and it is, reading your last statement so it is more to do with the MFcobol part

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
Actually this is the first line of the script and based on that return code, we processed some statements in "If" condition.
Our understanding is since the return code is coming wrongly, its not going inside the "If" condition and the part is skipped.

Basically this grep command list the files based on some value given if its part of that file.

Regarding COBOL, one sample program which is in MF COBOL 5.1 is calling the same script correctly. But the existing COBOL program not calling it correctly.

Thanks & Regards
Venkatesh S

Anyway this question about COBOL programming, not about shell or AIX. How we can help you if your script runs without problems on the command line and with problems as a subprocess (if I understand right) from your COBOL program?

You haven't been very clear with what's going on, so what follows may or may not be relevant.

grep is supposed to return 0 if a match is found, 1 if no match is found, and >1 if an error occurs. Testing specifically for 2 is probably not a good idea.

Regards,
Alister

Hi,
Thanks for all for your reply.
Before going into return variables to COBOL, first i would like to know the return variables between grep and ls in UNIX command prompt and shell script.
if i gave grep -l "555" $Dir_name* > $File_name, the return value is '0' if match found, else '1' if no match found.

Similarly, if i gave ls -l /tmp/sh12.sh, the return value is '0' if any file found, else '2' if no file match found.

Is my understanding of this return values correct?

Thanks & Regards,
Venkatesh S