Syntax Messages
In the March-April 1977 issue I suggested you write a program to generate as many different syntax-error messages as possible with as few statements in the program as possible.
I received a few responses but first prize must go to Wayne M. Compton of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He sent me a COBOL program with just one statement which generated 570 error messages. The statement was just the program name paragraph:
PROGRAM-ID. ERRMSG.
The compiler then went wild and generated 570 error messages. He ran this program on a IBM 370 OS/VS system. If you have access to such a system you might try it.
