Allowing 'sub forms' to see Working Storage of 'Main form'?

Have you considered using EXTERNAL?

Apologies...been on hols...could you give me a coding example please?

Apologies...been on hols...could you give me a coding example please?

I am attaching an example of how external data may be used to share data between programs.

Form1 and Form2 both have defined in working-storage a data record defined as:

  01 company-record   external.
         05 contact       pic x(30).
         05 company    pic x(30).
         05 phone         pic x(20).

Because it is defined as external in both programs it actually refers to the same data item so changes made to the data in one program are automatically reflected in the other.

There are other ways of sharing data between programs such as creating a class containing properties defined with the static attribute. Then all programs can access this property data by using the class-name::property-name syntax.

This example shows how to use external.

Form1:

      class-id shareData.Form1 is partial
                inherits type System.Windows.Forms.Form.
      working-storage section.
      01 company-record   external.
         05 contact       pic x(30).
         05 company     pic x(30).
         05 phone         pic x(20).
      01 subform  type shareData.Form2.
      method-id NEW.
      procedure division.
          invoke self::InitializeComponent
          goback.
      end method.
      method-id button1_Click final private.
      procedure division using by value sender as object e as type System.EventArgs.
          set contact to txtContact::Text
          set company to txtCompany::Text
          set phone to txtPhone::Text
          set subform to new shareData.Form2
          invoke subform::ShowDialog
       *> To redisplay any changes made to data.  
          set txtContact::Text to contact
          set txtCompany::Text to company
          set txtPhone::Text to phone
      end method.
      end class.

Form2:

      class-id shareData.Form2 is partial
                inherits type System.Windows.Forms.Form.
      working-storage section.
      01 company-record   external.
         05 contact       pic x(30).
         05 company    pic x(30).
         05 phone         pic x(20).
      method-id NEW.
      procedure division.
          invoke self::InitializeComponent()
          set txtContact::Text to contact
          set txtCompany::Text to company
          set txtPhone::Text to phone
          goback.
      end method.
      method-id button1_Click final private.
      procedure division using by value sender as object e as type System.EventArgs.
          set contact to txtContact::Text
          set company to txtCompany::Text
          set phone to txtPhone::Text
          invoke self::Close
      end method.
      end class.