The XML PARSE Statement

The XML PARSE statement is used to interface with an XML parser that is part of the COBOL run-time system. The XML PARSE statement parses an XML document into its individual pieces and passes each piece, one at a time, to a user-written processing procedure.

General Format

Syntax Rules

Identifier-1 must be an alphanumeric or national data item, cannot be a function-identifier, and should contain the XML document character stream. If identifier-1 is a national data item, its contents must be encoded using CCSID 1200 (Unicode UTF-16). It must not contain any character entities that are represented using multiple encoding units. Use a character reference, for example "" or "", to represent any such characters.
Procedure-name-1 specifies the first or only section or paragraph in the processing procedure
Procedure-name-2 specifies the last section or paragraph in the processing procedure.

General Rules

The PROCESSING PROCEDURE phrase specifies the name of a procedure to handle the various events that the XML parser generates. The processing procedure consists of the statements that handle XML events. The range of the processing procedure also includes all statements executed by CALL, EXIT, GO TO, GOBACK, INVOKE, and PERFORM statements in the processing procedure. The Compiler inserts a return mechanism after the last statement in the processing procedure. The processing procedure can terminate the run unit with a STOP RUN statement. It must not attempt to return to the parser with a GOBACK or EXIT PROGRAM statement.
The ON EXCEPTION phrase specifies imperative statements that are executed when the XML PARSE statement raises an exception condition. An exception condition occurs when the XML parser detects an error in processing the XML document. The parser first signals an exception XML event by passing control to the processing procedure with special register XML-EVENT set to contain "EXCEPTION". The parser provides a numeric error code in special register XML-CODE.
An exception condition also occurs if the processing procedure deliberately terminates parsing by setting XML-CODE to -1 before returning to the parser from any normal XML event. In this case, the parser does not signal an EXCEPTION XML event. The following applies:
1. If the ON EXCEPTION phrase is specified, the parser then transfers control to imperative-statement-1.
2. If the ON EXCEPTION phrase is not specified, the NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase, if any, is ignored, and control is transferred to the end of the XML PARSE statement.
3. If the XML processing procedure handles the exception XML event and sets XML-CODE to zero before returning control to the parser, the exception condition no longer exists.
4. If no other unhandled exceptions occur before the termination of the parser, control is transferred to imperative-statement-2 of the NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase, if specified.
The NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase specifies imperative statements that are executed when no exception condition exists at the termination of XML PARSE processing. The following applies:
1. If an exception condition does not exist at termination of XML PARSE processing, control is transferred to imperative-statement-2 of the NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase, if specified.
2. If the NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase is not specified, control is transferred to the end of the XML PARSE statement. In this case, ON EXCEPTION, if specified, is ignored. Special register XML-CODE contains zero after execution of the XML PARSE statement.