Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > General Reference > COBOL Language Reference > Part 1. Concepts > Concepts of the COBOL Language > Class and Category of Data > Uniqueness of Reference > Object-view

Object-view

An object-view causes an object reference to be treated as though it had the specified description. A runtime conformance check for this description will be done on the object.

General Format

Syntax Rules

Identifier-1 must be of class object; the predefined object references SUPER and NULL must not be specified.
An object-view must not be specified as a receiving operand.

General Rules

This reference of identifier-1 is treated at compile-time as though it had the description specified by the AS phrase.
If class-name-1 is specified without either of the optional phrases, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE IS OBJECT REFERENCE class-name-1. If the object referenced by identifier-1 is not an object of class-name-1 or an object of a subclass of class-name-1, the EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is set to exist.
If the FACTORY phrase is specified and the ONLY phrase is not specified, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE OBJECT REFERENCE FACTORY OF class-name-1. If the object referenced by identifier-1 is not the factory object of class-name-1 or the factory object of a subclass of class-name-1, the EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is set to exist.
If the ONLY phrase is specified and the FACTORY phrase is not specified, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE OBJECT REFERENCE class-name-1 ONLY. If the object referenced by identifier-1 is not an object of class-name-1, the EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is set to exist.
If both the FACTORY phrase and the ONLY phrase are specified, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE OBJECT REFERENCE FACTORY OF class-name-1 ONLY. If the object referenced by identifier-1 is not the factory object of class-name-1, the EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is set to exist.
If interface-name-1 is specified, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE OBJECT REFERENCE interface-name-1. If the object referenced by identifier-1 does not implement interface-name-1, the EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is set to exist.
If UNIVERSAL is specified, identifier-1 is treated as though it were described as USAGE OBJECT REFERENCE without any of the optional phrases to indicate the class or interface for objects referenced by identifier-1. The EC-OO-CONFORMANCE exception condition is not set to exist.