comments in wrong spot in generated XML with Level 88 condition

[michaelthoward]

A minor issue, but be advised ...
If comments are retained in the xml
[through the older Cb2Xml interface or Cb2Xml3.newBuilder().setLoadComments(true)]
then comments in the copybook nicely precede the XML items
However, in the case of a level 88 condition value the comment in XML comes after the condition node

  01  FOO.
  * Code assigned by M 
     03 CODE-NAME             pic 999.
  * comment for Mr Bond
        88 IS-JAMES-BOND value 007.
  * comment for the devil
        88 IS-THE-DEVIL value 666.

generates

<item level="01" name="FOO" position="1" storage-length="5107" display-length="5141" display-position="1">
    <!--* Code assigned by M-->
    <item level="03" name="CODE-NAME" picture="999" position="1" storage-length="3" display-length="3" numeric="COBOL_NUMERIC" display-position="1">
        <condition name="IS-JAMES-BOND">
            <condition value="007"/>
        </condition>
        <!--* comment for Mr Bond-->
        <condition name="IS-THE-DEVIL">
            <condition value="666"/>
        </condition>
        <!--* comment for the devil-->

Observe that <!--* comment for Mr Bond--> comes after the IS-JAMES-BOND condition name

[michaelthoward]

I have identified the location that is causing this problem.
net.sf.cb2xml.analysis.CopybookAnalyzer.checkForComments(Node node)

it is adding the comment before curItem, but in the case of condition88 that is not the correct behavior.

The following tweak to line 153 will correct this:

                    parent.addBefore(
                    		curItem,
                            correctForMinus(s));

becomes

                    parent.addBefore(
                    		"88".equals(node.getText()) ? condition : curItem,
                            correctForMinus(s));

The case above now correctly generates:

<item level="01" name="FOO" position="1" storage-length="5107" display-length="5141" display-position="1">
    <!--* Code assigned by M-->
    <item level="03" name="CODE-NAME" picture="999" position="1" storage-length="3" display-length="3" numeric="COBOL_NUMERIC" display-position="1">
        <!--* comment for Mr Bond-->
        <condition name="IS-JAMES-BOND">
            <condition value="007"/>
        </condition>
        <!--* comment for the devil-->
        <condition name="IS-THE-DEVIL">
            <condition value="666"/>
        </condition>

Observe that <!--* comment for Mr Bond--> now properly comes before the IS-JAMES-BOND condition name

[bmTas]

I will have a look at it and see what I can do.

Basically Cobol Comments do not map well with Xml-Schema. For example

     88 xxx-value                         66
   *   a comment in the middle of 88 level
                                                    thru 69.

We opted to keep the schema simple since most people are not interested in the comments

[michaelthoward]

Thanks for your prompt response.

most people are not interested in the comments

Agreed.
I don't recall setLoadComments() functionality in classic cb2xml ... good addition.
The comments have good documentation value that is useful in some cases.

Yes, your example demonstrates one of the complex cases.

I will have a look at it and see what I can do.

No need for you to get involved quite yet.
It has been many years since I used cb2xml, so this is a good exercise for me to refamiliarize myself with it.
I have continued to play with it to try to get it to handle these edge cases surrounding 88 condition value clauses.
I'll keep you advised here.

[bmTas]

I have a fix for the condition you raised and will upload today (hopefully).
Handling cases like

              88 xyzzy       value           123,
          *  a comment
                                              456                           

could be done by extending the Condition class to support comments and changes to the CopyBookAnalyzer class.

Cases like

       88 xxx-value                         66
   *   a comment in the middle of 88 level
                                            thru 69.

would involve changing the way the Conditions work (e.g. extension classes / splitting into multiple attributes.
I would be reluctant to make those changes unless absolutely necessary

[bmTas]

I have updated cb2xml in Github for the example provided, do you want me to try and extend it further.
I might be able to handle

              88 xyzzy       value           123,
          *  a comment
                                              456   

[michaelthoward]

> I have updated cb2xml in Github for the example provided
Thanks!
I will pull/update from github and test.

> I might be able to handle

          88 xyzzy       value          123,
      *  a comment
                                          456  

I do have some copybooks with comments like that.
I think it is worthwhile trying to handle this case.

Regarding the more complicated case ...

> I would be reluctant to make those changes unless absolutely necessary

   88 xxx-value                     66
  *   a comment in the middle of 88 level
                                    thru 69.

I would not worry about this split value range case.

[bmTas]

I will get started

[michaelthoward]

I have updated from github and tested your level 88 condition comments enhancement.

I confirm that comment lines before level 88 conditions in the copybook now get translated into XML comment nodes that now (correctly) come immediately before the corresponding condition xml node.

[bmTas]

Thanks for testing.

Looking at the code, comments are in the by-passed and simply lumped in with all other by-passed tokens (like white space). I will try changing comments to tokens to be processed. This will involve changing how comments are processed, it could introduce unexpected problems. So I will

• Write more Test case related to comments
• make the change

not sure how long it will take could be quick or slow going.

[bmTas]

Comments need to be ignored by the parser, not doing so causes problem with embedded comments. What I have don so far is the best I cane manage (with out a lot of work).

[michaelthoward]

Thanks for your efforts