OCCURS DEPENDING ON - SPACES check stopped working after I changed OCC-VAL

COBOL 6. Nested table with DEPENDING ON. Used to loop looking for TEMP-ELEM = SPACES to find a free slot. After a change where OCC-VAL is less than the max (say 30 of 80), that SPACES check fails weirdly.

Tried LOW-VALUE, <= SPACES, VALUE SPACES on the field. Feels like the unused occurrences have junk left over from when the table was bigger.

Am I supposed to only walk up to OCC-VAL and never peek past it?

Yes. Do not search past the current DEPENDING ON count. Memory past OCC-VAL is not "empty slots" you can trust. Cap the UNTIL at IND > OCC-VAL.

To add an entry: bump OCC-VAL first (if under max), then MOVE into that new subscript.

Also watch nested ODO where the counters are global. Every parent ends up sharing the same count field. Put the count inside the parent structure.

That was it. I was scanning the full 80. Loop stops at OCC-VAL now and I initialize the new slot when I add. Works.