GNU Cobol FAQ - OpenCOBOL FAQ - Add 1 to COBOL

697 Pages·2014·2.16 MB·English

GNU Cobol FAQ
|
Status
Thisisa2.1workinprogressreleaseoftheGNUCobolFAQ.Sourced
atgcfaqrrst. CourtestyofReStructuredText, SphinxandPygments.
GNUCobol2.1isnotcurrentlyrolledout,butisavailablefortesting.
GNUCobolFAQppdf is also available, but broken, as a work in
progress, with no work done yet, using Texlive and Sphinx.
This FAQ is more than a FAQ and less than a FAQ. Someday that
willchangeandthisdocumentwillbesplitintoaGNUCobolmanual
and a simplified Frequently Asked Questions file.
Website favicon by Mark James, help.png from the FAMFAMFAM
Silk icon set.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
Banner courtesy of the GIMP, Copyright © 2008-2014 Brian Tif-
fin licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
Generic License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Authors Brian Tiffin [btiffin]_
Answers, quotes and contributions:
John Ellis [jrls_swla]_, Vincent Coen, Jim Currey, Bill Klein [wmk-
lein]_,
Ganymede, Simon Sobisch [human]_, Rildo Pragana, Sergey Kashyrin,
Federico Priolo, Frank Swarbrick, Angus, DamonH, Parhs, Gerald
Chudyk
Compiler by:
*Roger While* [Roger]_,
*Keisuke Nishida* [Keisuke]_,
*Ron Norman* [Ron]_,
*Sergey Kashyrin* [Sergey]_,
(with the invaluable assistance of many others)
Special credits to
*Gary Cutler* author of the GNU Cobol Programmers Guide
Joseph James Frantz for hosting and advocacy [aoirthoir]_
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Version 2.1.17, May 24th, 2014
Status never complete; like a limit, limaq→0f(aq)=42
Copyright Copyright © 2008-2014 Brian Tiffin
ChangeLog ChangeLog_
note
Regarding COBOL Standards, Official COBOL Standards: There
are many references to standards in this document. Very few of
them are technically correct references. Apologies to all the hard
working men and women of the technical committees for this un-
intentional slight. For specific details on what wordings should be
used please see What are the Official COBOL Standards?_
GNU Cobol
_GNU Cobol FAQ
What is GNU Cobol?
GNU Cobol_ is a free COBOL_ compiler. GNU Cobol is a GNU software
project.
GNU Cobol implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85_ and COBOL
2002_ standards, as well as many extensions of the existent COBOL compilers.
GNU Cobol translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using
the configured C compiler, usually gcc. You can build your COBOL programs
on various platforms, including Unix/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows,
OS/400, z/OS 390 mainframes, among others..
GNU Cobol was OpenCOBOL. OpenCOBOL started around 2002, and on
September 26th, 2013, GNU Cobol was accepted and dubbed a GNU pack-
age by Dr. Richard Stallman. One day before the 30th anniversary of the GNU
announcement.
The official page for GNU Cobol is:
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnucobol
A valuable reference, the GNU Cobol Programmer's Guide can be found at
GNU Cobol Programmers Guide.
The original OpenCOBOL Programmer's Guide can be found at OpenCOBOL
Programmers Guide.
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In this author’s opinion, GNU Cobol is a world class COBOL compiler, very
capable with almost all of the COBOL 85 specifications, plus having some very
internet ready, next generation potentials.
As a teaser, here is a GNU Cobol sample, written to explore the desktop GTK
calendar widget, redirected to a browser using GDK Broadway, with clicks in
the browser window invoking GNU Cobol graphical event callback handlers.
More on this in A GTK+ calendar_
What is COBOL?
COBOL_isanacronymforCOmmonBusinessOrientedLanguage. Thisauthor
has always thought of it as “Common Business” Oriented more than Common
“Business Oriented”, but that emphasis is perhaps up to the reader’s point of
view.
Asanaside: I’dliketostealtheOinCOmmon,andhaven’tfoundasuitableword
as of yet. CommonOriginally BusinessOrientedLanguage,wastried,tryingto
connote “it’s been extended”, but it sounds diminishing, like GNU Cobol can’t
do Business anymore. Which isn’t the case. So, the quest continues.
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How is GNU Cobol licensed?
The compiler is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
The run-time library is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License.
All source codes are copyright by the respective authors. With many thanks to
Roger While and Keisuke Nishida for sharing their work with the world.
What that means, roughly, is:
You are allowed to write GNU Cobol programs that use the libcob run time
library however you like. Closed, proprietary, commercial use is allowed as
part of the GPL user freedoms. You can ship GNU Cobol generated programs in
binary form as you wish, (with exceptions; mentioned below).
Modifications to the compiler itself, MUST provide access to source code and
be licensed under the GNU GPL. Modifications to the run time library code
must also provide access to the source code of the library changes, and be
licensed under the LGPL. This ensures that no one is allowed to call
modified sources their own, nor deny anyone else the chance to copy and
re-distribute the compiler source code, including your local changes.
Please note: any verion of the compiler that is configured to use Berkeley DB
beyond version 1.85 must abide by the Oracle license, and sources of the
COBOL programs that use libdb must be shipped with any binaries. There are
alternatives to libdb, but deep down, GNU Cobol encourages open and free
software.
GNUCobolisdistributedinthehopethatitwillbeuseful,butWITHOUTANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
License for more details.
What platforms are supported by GNU Cobol?
OpenCobol 1.0_ the current official release version, hosted on SourceForge.net,
compiles on:
• All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)
• All POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes)
• OS/X
GNU Cobol 1.1_, has been built on
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• MS Windows native
• MS Windows with Cygwin
• GNU/Linux
• POSIX Systems including OpenSolaris
• OS/X
• AS/400
• HP Integrity HPUX 11.23
• RS600 AIX 5
• 390 Mainframe z/OS OMVS/USS
• others
Are there pre-built GNU Cobol packages
Yes. Debian_ APT_, and RPM packages exist. Packages for NetBSD. Many.
Google opencobol packages for older builds, and gnu cobol for any late
breaking news.
A Debian Advanced Package Tool binary package exists for GNU Cobol 1.1 as
open-cobol and lists dependencies of
• libc6 (>= 2.7-1),
• libcob1,
• libcob1-dev (= 1.0-1),
• libdb4.5 (>= 4.5.20-3),
• libdb4.5-dev,
• libgmp3-dev,
• libgmp3c2,
• libltdl3-dev,
• libncurses5 (>= 5.6+20071006-3)
ThankstothegraciouseffortsofBartMartens, bartmonDebian’s.orgdomain.
kiska.net repository
Also check out kiskannet for binary builds on various platforms. Thanks to
Sergey Kashyrin, who is also the author of the version that emits C++ inter-
mediates.
sourceforge
There are GNU Cobol links at http://cobol.sourceforge.net
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Inparticular,http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobol/files/open-cobol/cancome
inhandy,withsourcesandMinGWbinariesataminimum. Maybemoreastime
goes on.
Windows ™ MinGW
Arnold Trembley put together an INNO installer, based on Gary Cut-
ler’s MinGW builds of OpenCOBOL 1.1. Makes it pretty easy to get
COBOL running on a PC. You can find it attached to SourceForge discus-
sions, or at Arnold’s site, http://www.arnoldtrembley.com/OpenCOBOL-1.
1-06FEB2009-MinGW-Setup.exe
What is the most recent version of GNU Cobol?
See What is the current version of GNU Cobol?_
How complete is GNU Cobol?
OpenCOBOL 1.0_ implements a substantial portion of COBOL 85_, supports
many of the advances and clarifications of COBOL 2002_, and includes many
extensions in common use from Micro Focus COBOL, ACUCOBOL and other
existent compilers.
GNU Cobol 2.1_ implements a more substantial portion of the COBOL 85_
Dialect, COBOL 2002_ and a growing number of vendor extensions. Some
proposed COBOL 20xx features have also been implemented. Compatibility
support includes:
• MF for Micro Focus
• IBM for IBM compatibility
• MVS
• BS2000
GNU Cobol also includes some advanced features allowing source code such as
CALL "cfunction" USING BY REFERENCE ADDRESS OF VAR-IN-LINKAGE-SECTION.
Passing the equivalent of char**, pointer to pointer to char. Just as a small
example of the level of coverage and flexibility provided by GNU Cobol.
DISPLAY
FUNCTION UPPER-CASE(
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FUNCTION SUBSTITUTE(
"This is the orginal string.";
"original"; "new"; "string"; "text"
)
)
END-DISPLAY
To allow for substitution of mixed length strings, something not normally so
easy in COBOL. The above will output:
THIS IS THE NEW TEXT.
note
While GNU Cobol can be held to a high standard of quality and
robustness, the authors DO NOT claim it to be a “Standard
Conforming” implementation of COBOL.
Will I be amazed by GNU Cobol?
Thisauthorbelievesso. ForafreeimplementationofCOBOL,GNUCobolmay
surprise you in the depth and breadth of its COBOL feature support, usability
and robustness.
COBOL has historically been very secretive and low key. Its domain of use
beingverysecretiveandlowkey. COBOLprogrammersrarelyworkonsystems
that would allow for open internet chat regarding details, let alone existence. It
isatributetotheprofessionalismoftheseprogrammersthatmostpeoplerarely,
if ever, hear the name COBOL, a programming language with billions of lines
ofsourcecodecompiledandinproductionaroundtheworldoverhalfacentury.
GNU Cobol is poised to change that historic trend, and allow for the long
overduesharingofwisdomthatlegionsofCOBOLdevelopershaveaccumulated
over50yearsofsuccessandfailure. TheGNUCobolconversationmaybemore
POSIX_ than mainframe, but there is now room to share, critique and pass on
the hard lessons learned from critical systems computing. Given that millions
ofCOBOLprogrammerskeptbillionsoflinesofCOBOLsourceoutofthepress,
surely some of the wisdom can be passed on in a way that keeps all the secrets
secret while curious developers are exposed to COBOL outside the vaults.
Who do I thank for GNU Cobol?
Many people. In particular Keisuke Nishida, Roger While, Ron Norman,
and Sergey Kashyrin.
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See the THANKS file in the source code archive for more names of people that
have worked on the OpenCOBOL, now GNU Cobol, project. Roger points out
that the list is woefully incomplete. To quote:
The OC project would not have been where it is today without the
significant/enormous help from many-many persons. The THANKS
file does not even do justice to this.
Does GNU Cobol include a Test Suite?
Whyyesitdoes. 74syntaxtests,170coveragetests,and16datarepresentation
tests in the February 2009 pre-release. 88 syntax, 253 coverage, and 22 data
tests in a 2010 cut.
From the development tarball:
$ make check
will evaluateand report on the test suite. See makecheck listing_ for a current
output listing of a test run.
Does GNU Cobol pass the NIST Test Suite?
TheNationalInstituteofStandardsandTechnology,NIST,maintainsaCOBOL
85implementationverificationsuiteoftests. Anarchiveofthetestscanbefound
at
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div897/ctg/cobol_form.htm
GNU Cobol passes many of the tests included in the NIST sponsored COBOL
85 test suite. While it passes over 9000 of the tests, GNU Cobol does not claim
conformance to any level of COBOL Standard.
Instructions for use of the NIST suite is included in the build archive under:
tests/cobol85/README
Basically, it is a simple uncompress and make then sit back and relax. The
scripts run GNU Cobol over some 374 programs/modules and includes thou-
sands of test passes.
Test Modules
------------
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Core tests:
NC - COBOL nucleus tests
SM - COPY sentence tests
IC - CALL sentence tests
File I-O tests:
SQ - Sequential file I-O tests
RL - Relative file I-O tests
IX - Indexed file I-O tests
ST - SORT sentence tests
SG - Segment tests
Advanced facilities:
RW - REPORT SECTION tests
IF - Intrinsic Function tests
SG - Segment tests
DB - Debugging facilities tests
OB - Obsolete facilities tests
With the addition of GLOBAL support, the GNU Cobol 2.1 pre-release fails
none of the attempted tests.
The summary.log from a run in November 2013 with initial Report Writer sup-
port:
------ Directory Information ------- --- Total Tests Information ---
Module Programs Executed Error Crash Pass Fail Deleted Inspect Total
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
NC 95 95 0 0 4371 0 4 26 4401
SM 17 17 0 0 293 0 2 1 296
IC 25 25 0 0 247 0 4 0 251
SQ 85 85 0 0 521 0 0 89 610
RL 35 35 0 0 1830 0 5 0 1835
IX 42 42 0 0 510 0 1 0 511
ST 40 40 0 0 289 0 0 0 289
SG 13 13 0 0 313 0 0 0 313
OB 7 7 0 0 34 0 0 0 34
IF 45 45 0 0 735 0 0 0 735
RW 6 6 0 0 42 0 0 0 42
DB 14 14 0 0 404 0 4 27 435
------ -------- -------- ----- ----- ----- ---- ------- ------- -----
Total 424 424 0 0 9589 0 20 143 9752
This is up from the 1.1 Feb 2009 release count of 9082.
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What’s missing?
GNU Cobol 2.1 does not include support for:
Advanced facilities:
CM - COMMUNICATION SECTION tests
and limits tests within the:
DB - Debugging facilities tests
OB - Obsolete facilities tests
sections.
What about GNU Cobol and benchmarks?
COBOL has a legacy dating back to 1959. Many features of the COBOL stan-
dardprovidedefaultsmoresuitabletomainframearchitecturethanthepersonal
computer a 3rd millennium GNU Cobol developer will likely be using.
GNU Cobol, by default, generates code optimized for big-endian_ hardware.
FairlydramaticspeedimprovementsonIntelarchitecturecancomefromsimple
USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL-5 clauses in the DATA DIVISION.
telco billing
Thereisabenchmarkpostedathttp://speleotrove.com/decimal/telco.htmland
thankstoBillKlein[wmklein]_,thereisaCOBOLentry. Fromthesourcecode
athttp://home.comcast.net/~wmklein/DOX/TELCO.txtyoushouldonlyhave
to modify
Input-Output Section.
File-Control.
Select InFile Assign to
"C:\expon180.1e6".
Select OutFile Assign to
"C:\TELCO.TXT"
Line
Sequential.
to point to the correct filename for your local copy of the benchmark million
entry file and a suitable OutFile name for a clean compile and run.
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