Notes: The 'EXTERNAL' clause in the 'SELECT' statement can be used to relate internal to external filenames at run time, by using environment variables. The syntax is a follows. SELECT ... ASSIGN TO EXTERNAL { variable | literal } In example 'test19b.cob' the following can be used. SELECT TEST-FILE-OUT ASSIGN TO EXTERNAL WS-FILENAME-OUT SELECT TEST-FILE-OUT ASSIGN TO EXTERNAL "FILENAMEOUT" In this case the stored value of the literal or variable is used as an environment variable which is used to determined the actual filename. If no environment variable is found or is empty, then the filename defaults to the value stored in the literal or variable. To run type(example): test19 test19 output-filename test19a test19b test19b output-filename