cobol

concatenating unknown-length strings in COBOL

How do I concatenate together two strings, of unknown length, in COBOL? So for example: WORKING-STORAGE. FIRST-NAME PIC X(15) VALUE SPACES. LAST-NAME PIC X(15) VALUE SPACES. FULL-NAME PIC X(31) VALUE SPACES. If FIRST-NAME = 'JOHNbbbbbbbbbbb' (where 'b' signifies a space), and LAST-NAME = 'DOEbbbbbbbbbbbb', how d...

Migrating to a GUI without losing business logic written in COBOL

We maintain a system that has over a million lines of COBOL code. Does someone have suggestions about how to migrate to a GUI (probably Windows based) without losing all the business logic we have written in COBOL? And yes, some of the business logic is buried inside the current user interface. ...

Rewrite of legacy code

My department is currently faced with the responsibility for the task of maintaining a rather large COBOL code base. We are wondering how to add new features to keep up with business needs. COBOL programmers are hard to come by these days, and we also think we would get higher productivity from using a more modern language like Java or C...

Any other mainframers here?

I started working as a programmer about ten years ago now. Started working for state government and went to a private sector job about three years ago. All cobol, all on the mainframe. I was told time and time again that the mainframe would be dead by now, yet we are in the midst of yet another round of enhancements that will all be d...

Reading a COBOL DAT file

I have been given a set of COBOL DAT, IDX and KEY files and I need to read the data in them and export it into Access, XLS, CSV, etc. I do not know the version, vendor of the COBOL code as I only have the windows executable that created the files. I have tried Easysoft and Parkway ODBC drivers but I have not been successful in reading t...

JMP0811I-U Fujitsu runtime error after compiling Fujitsu COBOL with DB2 SQL: cause/remedy?

I'm able to (on Windows XP) precompile, compile and link a sample (Fujitsu NetCobol) COBOL test program which contains embedded SQL. This test program is to read and display the number of rows in a DB2 (UDB 9.5 on Linux) database table. At runtime I get following error message: JMP0811I-U [PID:... TID:...] FAILURE IN LINKAGE RULES OR P...

Teaching a mainframe COBOL programmer Java?

I’m trying to help someone learn Java who’s only programming experience is COBOL on the mainframe. I was wondering if anyone knew any good resources for object oriented concepts. I learned how to program with C++ so just understand the theory behind basic OOP. I’m more concerned about a way to get the basic concepts across, such as encap...

Utilizing Java API from a Cobol program

We have some COBOL programs running on our mainframe and we need one of those to communicate with our back end vault through a Java API. Is there any way a Cobol program can invoke the Java program? Would it be possible to use a Web Service from Cobol? How would I integrate a Cobol program with anything else? ...

Would it be possible to use web services from a Cobol program?

We have some COBOL programs in our financial applications which need to interact with some of our backend systems. One of the available interfaces is through a web service. Can a program written in Cobol make requests to a web service? ...

What's the COBOL "Bible"?

As a C++ programmer, I always refer to The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup as my C++ "Bible". It's not necessarily the best tutorial. It's not the official specification. It's not necessarily even the best reference. But I believe most C++ programmers would agree that it is regarded as authoritative. Is there a similar...

How to specify default file extension for Oracle's Pro*COBOL precompiler

Is it possible to configure the default file extension that Oracle's Pro*COBOL precompiler assumes for EXEC SQL INCLUDE filename END-EXEC statements in which there is no filename specified for the include file? The docs seem specify that in this case - INCLUDE statement without file extension - the precompiler will use the system de...

A COBOL programmer thinking about switching to the modern world

I would like to know what are the best options for a COBOL programmer to switch to more modern platforms. I explored Java but will all its frameworks its overwhelming. .NET appeared much simpler but I'm worried if it will result in a vendor lock-in; we have had enough of it with COBOL. What about other choices such as LAMP, Ruby On rai...

There actually is COBOL in .NET?

I was checking Microsoft's Visual Studio page just now and in the advertisements sidebar I suddenly saw an incredible advertisement: "Net Express is a COBOL development environment for extending core business processes to the .NET Framework and other distributed platforms." Of course I followed the link and found a company that do...

Have COBOL compiled Program -- Missing Source

We have a very important application, but so far no source code. The application was written in COBOL and a compiled version is in our production system and is running. However, we need to migrate to a new server, and new cobol compiler. We're under the impression that we need to recompile the code to get it to work on the new server....

How Cobol is business oriented?

Is Cobol business oriented only because it's syntax is like real spoken English? Or is there something more to it and has Cobol frameworks that generate some code too? If there is no other business oriented aspects in Cobol than English like syntax, then spoken English can be achieved using verbose coding like totalSumOfLowCostItems = s...

Delphi app calling cobol app -> error

We need to get data out of an older accounting system. We have received a dll that gives us access to the data we need. It includes a type library that we have imported. If we run our test application from the same directory as the accounting system, everything works fine. If we try to run our application from a different directory, we ...

VB6 lives forever like Cobol

In the last 3-5 years I have been renewing an insurance application and a commmercial integration toolkit based on vb6. According to Microsoft's "It just works policy" the IDE is no longer supported after april 8th 2008 It still works to develop and deploy vb 6 apps. The question is: When will it be impossible to support vb6 applicatio...

What are some good resources for getting started with COBOL programming?

I'm thinking about learning COBOL. Where should I start? ...

How to replace one value with another when comparing 2 strings?

Hi My user have a password field such as “0!ZWQ2” saved in the database. I must unscramble my User input password from “aA1234” to “0!ZWQ2” and compare it to data in a database. The 2 strings that I compare is: “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890 ” With “9setybcpqwiuvxr108daj5'-`~!@#$%^&()+|}][{:.?/<>,;ZWQ2...

How do I convert VB's Double to COBOL's COMP-3?

Hi All, Does anyone here know how to convert a VB Double to Cobol S9(15)V99 Comp-3 data type. Any help would be appreciated. ...