We plan to migrate an old IBM/COBOL/DB2 legacy app to a Solaris/Oracle/C++ "setuped" world. My specific questions here are:
are there any experiences with tools able to analyze COBOL code in a more model driven view? (e.g. data flow analysis, code flow analysis, cross/hyperref listings, pretty printing)
is openCOBOL a real chance to go?
what are the best tools/frameworks to analyze DB2 AND Oracle data models?
Regards
I would recommend Micro Focus Server Enterprise edition as a new production platform running on a unix/linux box.
Microfocus provide a product called Enterprise Server which allows COBOL to interact with web services.
If you have a COBOL program A and another COBOL program B and A calls B via the interface section, the tool allows you to expose B's interface section as a web service.
For program A, you then generate a client proxy and A can now call B via a web service.
Of course, because B now has a web service any other type of program (command line, Windows application, Java, ASP etc.) can now also call it.
This would then allow a C++ program to call the COBOL code.
They also have another product COBOL.Net which provides an interpreter to .NET IL for COBOL programs.
Because this is on the .NET platform, you can mix-and-match with C# etc.
My company provides tools that do all the things you request: parse, prettyprint, flow analysis (control/data flow per compilation unit, call graph/points to across very large systems) of IBM Enterprise COBOL. See http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/FrontEnds/COBOLFrontEnd.html