Different Background color for columns of COBOL source

Question

I am looking for a way to "downlight" columns in Notepad++.

• the COBOL compiler ignores the first 6 columns and all characters starting from column 73 (to column 80, 81+ is ignored anyway).
• The seventh character has a special meaning (comment,debug, ... ).
• The 8th to 11th characters have also a special meaning.

for code-viewing it is sufficient to do a reg-ex search for ^....... because ^.{7} is not working. With the option 'Mark Pattern' hit 'Search all' and you got the first 7 columns marked.

The problem is, when you edit the code, the marking is expanded / shrinked / moved and you need to redo the mark/search.

I use NotePad++ 5.03 ansi w/o unicode, COBOL highlighting installed from its website.

edit: I also tried 'options'-'View'-pane-'Primary View'-"show vertical limit" but this is shown in all documents and only for one column-position

Answer 1

jEdit has a COBOL mode but it also doesn't treat the first seven characters in a special way, except when they are followed by * or /. Then the whole line is treated as a comment.

It should be possible to change the edit mode to change this, I'm a bit worried about the performance, though.

Answer 2

It seams Notepad++ is not capable of highlighting columns.

For jEdit I found some possibilities but not finished yet:

• The plugin ColumnRuler Version: 1.0.2 Author: Brad Mace,
  but it is shown in all file modes.
• I am editing on a new COBOL mode file, thats not so easy, especially marking all text starting with column 73.

edit: COBOL mode ready and commited see https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2654343&group_id=588&atid=350588

Answer 3

The Zeus editor does syntax highlighting for about 30 languages and COBOL is one of them.

It's COBOL mode is configured to do no special highlighting for columns 1-6, special comment highlighting for any '*' character at column 7 and default COBOL highlighting for all text after and including column 8. It also has a movable right margin to mark the 73 column position.

It even does a limited amount of COBOL code folding.