COBOL – Tricky Interview Question

This question you may come across in many interviews. This scenario usually comes in Banking projects/Insurance/Finance projects. You can learn domain knowledge in an easy way.

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Question:

How to process 2 files by comparing key field in COBOL?

Solution-1:

First file you need to read, also read second file. If both key field matches, you can ignore it. Let us say T,M files.
T < M means this is new account so we need to update in the master file
T > M means an account is missing in the Master file, so we need to update it

Solution-2:

If both files are same number of records. It is good, our work is reduced
If T file comes to AT END you need to move HIGH VALUES into key field
If M files comes to  AT END you need to move HIGH VALUES into key field
So you need to process till both key fields are equal to HIGH VALUES.

Note: Key fields must be in PIC (X) not numeric

Solution-3:

To avoid lot of I/Os, you can read data into local array table, and you can process the records.

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