Beginning with COBOL for AIX Version 4, if a program uses the WSCLEAR compiler option, all WORKING-STORAGE data items that do not have the EXTERNAL attribute are cleared to binary zeros at initialization.
In earlier versions of COBOL for AIX, WSCLEAR caused all of a program's WORKING-STORAGE data items to be cleared.
Programs that are migrating to the current version of COBOL for AIX and that define EXTERNAL data items in WORKING-STORAGE might therefore need to initialize those data items explicitly, for example by coding VALUE clauses.
related tasks
Sharing data by using the EXTERNAL clause
related references
WSCLEAR