Question

Is there anyway to get a SUBSTRING of string literal in COBOL without using a temporary variable?

Let’s say in the following code:

MOVE "HELLO" TO MY-VAR.
MOVE MY-VAR(1:3) TO SUB-STR.

Is there any way to do the same thing, but without MY-VAR?

EDIT:
I did tried following code, but it’s failed.

MOVE "HELLO"(1:3) TO SUB-STR   * COMPILE ERROR

Answer 1

You can accomplish what you are trying to do by type-laundering the literal through a function. You can then substring, or reference modify, the output of the function. Consider that calling reverse twice on the same data returns the original data.

Move function reverse                           
 ( function reverse( 
      'abcdefg' 
   )
 ) (3:1) to text-out

The above will result in a ‘c’ being moved to text-out.