A line sequential file is a set of records delimited by CRLF characters. This cannot be used to read in a binary file.

I would recommend using the byte stream library routines, CBL_OPEN_FILE and CBL_READ_FILE to accomplish this.

What do you want to do with this file?
Chris give a correct answer!
there are other programs to works/integrate  with grafic file, a example is irfanview

Chris,

 I have the following code:

WORKING-STORAGE

01 IMAGE-FILE PIC X(16) VALUE 'C:\image.PNG'.

 PROCEDURE DIVISION.

           CALL "CBL_OPEN_FILE" USING IMAGE-FILE

                            RETURNING STATUS-CODE

           END-CALL.

However, it returns a strange status code that looks like a 'u'. The hex display for the status code is H"B5". The CALL statement is unable to read the image file.

Greiner,

I am trying to print an image file using PCL language but in order to do that, I need to get the binary code for the image which I am trying to do with COBOL. 

It is not so simple, do you have read the help and See the example for this

you must define more and read the Bytes you had define until eof!

Here is ab example:

       identification division.
       program-id. Program1.

       environment division.
       configuration section.

       data division.
       working-storage section.
       01 data-buffer    pic x(1000) value spaces.
       01 filename       pic x(30) value "myfile.jpg".
       01 access-mode    pic x comp-x value 67. *> read-write and > 4gb.
       01 deny-mode      pic x comp-x value 3.
       01 device         pic x comp-x value 0.
       01 file-handle    pic x(4) comp-5 value zeroes.
       01 file-offset    pic x(8) comp-x.
       01 byte-count     pic x(8) comp-x.
       01 flags          pic x comp-x.
       procedure division.

           call "CBL_OPEN_FILE"
              using filename
                    access-mode
                    deny-mode
                    device
                    file-handle
           end-call
           if return-code not = 0
               display "error on open = " return-code
               stop run
           end-if
           move 128 to flags *> File-offset will contain the filesize
           call "CBL_READ_FILE"
              using file-handle
                    file-offset
                    byte-count
                    flags
                    data-buffer
           end-call
           if return-code not = 0
               display "error on get filesize = " return-code
               stop run
           end-if

           move 0 to flags
           move file-offset to byte-count *> read the entire file
                                          *> buffer must be large enough
           move 1 to file-offset
           call "CBL_READ_FILE" using file-handle
                                      file-offset
                                      byte-count
                                      flags
                                      data-buffer
           end-call
           if return-code not = 0
               display "error on get filesize = " return-code
               stop run
           end-if

           goback.

       end program Program1.

Chris,

The code you provided works as it does not return an error. But I am still trying to understand how to obtain the binary code of my image. Where does it store the binary code when the call "CBL_READ_FILE" executes?

It reads the number of bytes specified in byte-count into the data-buffer data-item. The first call to cbl_read_file with a flag value of 128 simply returns the size of the file into the file-offset data-item. So I move the size of the file from file-offset to byte-count and then the second call to cbl_read_file will read the contents of the file into data-buffer. This example is very simple and assumes that the file is not greater than 1000 bytes which is the size of data-buffer. 

Are you sure that the PCL command requires the actual image to be embedded in the PCL stream and not just a filename of an image to load?

Chris,

Thank you for the explanation. The image file is 14kb and I therefore increased the data-buffer to 14000.  However, the data-buffer is blank when I execute both CBL_READ_FILE commands. No, I am not sure if the PCL command requires the actual image to be embedded in the PCL stream. The PCL printer language protocol was developed by Hewlett-Packard and they have documentation on PCL commands. I am still parsing through their manual, but I am not having any luck with regards to printing image files with PCL commands. The resources I have encountered suggest that printing an image in PCL requires the binary data of the image to be printed.

Sorry, I had one of the data items defined incorrectly.

Please change byte-count from pic x(8) comp-x to pic x(4) comp-x.

01 byte-count     pic x(4) comp-x.