Question

Does anyone have an idea how you can catch the exception that cobol throws if you try to open an IO file if it doesn’t exist, and then create a new file?

Answer 1

The OPTIONAL phrase on the SELECT cause will do this:

SELECT OPTIONAL FILE-A 
   ASSIGN TO "INFILE" 
   ORGANIZATION INDEXED. 

If OPEN IO the file will be created if necessary. For OPEN INPUT, the file not be created but treated as being at EOF and all random reads will be “INVALID KEY”.

I’m pretty sure this is an ANSI standard clause, but can’t remember when it showed up.