Rocket® COBOL

Problem: By default, RM/COBOL implements a pessimistic record locking mechanism.  This type of locking allows a user process to lock a record, indefinitely, during an update.  This can cause issues if another user process is waiting on the record lock. Resolution: In Unix environments, the RM/COBOL subprogram library, C$OSLockInfo, can be used to obtain the process ID of the process that has a file locked, however, on Windows, RM/COBOL does not provide any built-in mechanism for obtaining the file lock information. In order to determine the user name of a locked file, you will have to implement some external method. Below are several suggestions on how to accomplish this task: 1. Micro Focus provides a product named RM/InfoExpress that is server/client RM/COBOL file manager. If you route all of your I/O through RM/InfoExpress, then, you could use the RM/InfoExpress Server Display utility to determine what user has which files open. This is the only method that we will s

Problem: RM/InfoExpress can be used to create new COBOL indexed files.  For that purpose, RM/InfoExpress can be configured to create new files using a specific user id with specific file permissions. Resolution: In order to get the InfoExpress server to create files with the correct permissions, you will need to execute the InfoExpress server from a shell script that sets the correct umask. This should allow you to control the shell that the InfoExpress server is created in. This will give you control over the permissions of files created using InfoExpress.UNIX-like operating system, have the function, "umask", which can be used to change the default permissions for newly created files for any user.For more information regarding umask, please consult the man pages for your operating system.

I have several MicroFocus COBOL programs that use IBM MQ Series calls.  When they are linked to run on an MQ Series server, by including MQMCB32.LIB on the CBLLINK command, the link completes successfully with no errors.  When the programs are linked this way they run fine on an MQ Series server.  Now I need to link them to run on an MQ Series Client.  To run on an MQ Series Client they need to be linked with the MQICCB32.LIB library instead of with MQMCB32.LIB.  When I run CBLLINK to link the programs with MQICCB32.LIB the link fails with error "LNK1106: invalid file or disk full: cannot seek to 0x4828bdb6".  There is 2 GB free space on the drive where the compile is running. so I don't think it's a space problem.  These programs also include Oracle database calls, so SQLLIB18.LIB is also included on the CBLLINK command.  I saw the article that says you can't include other 3rd party libraries along with the MQ Library, but when I

I would like to use Visual COBOL 2012 Personal Edition with Visual Studio 2013. So far, I haven't seen an installer for Visual Studio 2013. I was just wondering whether there is any harm in installing VCPE 2012.#VisualStudio2013#Installation#VisualCOBOL2012

Problem: When opening a solution in Visual COBOL for Visual Studio, the project may fail to load and the error message in Solution Explorer is "The project requires user input. Reload the project for more information". Resolution: When the solution project is located on a network drive, you may get this error. Right-click the project in Solution Explorer and select 'Reload Project', A dialog appears warning about an untrusted location. Click OK and the solution project is loaded successfully. SI2819793

Problem: In a COBOL Cobsql Oracle program, the following SELECT statement compiles OK but when run gets an ORA-01007: variable not in select list error.        WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.            10 VARCHAR-DATA. 49 VARCHAR-DATA-LEN  PIC S9(4) USAGE COMP. 49 VARCHAR-DATA-TEXT  PIC X(100).        PROCEDURE DIVISION.                  SELECT  VARCHAR                  INTO    :VARCHAR-DATA                                         FROM  XXX      

Problem: Usually in a COBOL program we define the host variable as COMP to map directly onto the INT DB2 data type. When a variable is defined as COMP in the linkage section of a COBOL DB2 stored procedure for LUW, and you try to pass a numeric value to this variable from a COBOL program, you may get a value different from what you have passed. Resolution: DB2 is passing in the data to the stored procedure as little-endian on an Intel system. Defining the variable as COMP-5 in the linkage section of the COBOL DB2 stored procedure program solves the problem. See attachment for an example of a COBOL DB2 stored procedure and a COBOL program that calls it. SI2807407 db2sp.zip

Problem: When using CALL "SYSTEM" USING command-line to execute a COBOL program and pass parameter to the program, the received parameter in ACCEPT passed-parms FROM COMMAND-LINE in the called program may contain extra values that are appended to the end of the string being passed. In the example below, you may get 'A B C ABC' in PASSED-PARMS, instead of 'A B C'. Calling program:        WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.        01  WS-COMMAND-LINE.            05  WS-CALLED-PROG                PIC X(08) VALUE 'PROGNAME' .            05  WS-SPACE-DELIMITER         PIC X(01) VALUE SPACE.            05  WS-P

I’m currently working on a project for my manager where we need to interact with a JSON system.  I’m looking for a way to convert JSON into XML in order to process responses using a RM/Cobol application using XML-Extensions.  After speaking with Steve Jolivet with Microfocus, a google search returned “Converting JSON to XML using XSLT 1.0” (link “www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm written by Tom Morrison.  I copied Tom's two XSLT examples (json2xml_step1.xsl and json2xml_step2.xsl) into Stylus Studio X14 Professional.  I wanted to run the stylesheets over my existing JSON response in order to see the results. However, Stylus Studio complains about several things within json2xml_step1.xsl and I’m not strong enough in XSLT to determine what it's complaining about in some cases.  Can anyone provide some insight, please?#RMCOBOL#XMLExtensions#ConvertJSONtoXML

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 04 January 2011]Considering that most COBOL apps store customer contact information one way or another, there should be nice opportunities for some CRM tooling, especially when we know how easy it is to interact with Microsoft Office using dot net in VISUAL COBOL.How about using Microsoft Word in conjunction with your customer database to mail a promo? All automatic of course :-)To use the following source example;* Make sure you have a C drive, and write access to the root of it. Otherwise change all filenames in the source to your preferred destination.* Make sure you have Microsoft Office installed.* Start up Visual COBOL.* Select File | New | Project.* Choose COBOL, Managed, Console Application.* Enter name, Location and Solution name as desired or use the suggested values.* Click Ok.* You should now have gotten the source file (Program1.cbl) editor.* To the right, you should have the Solution Explorer. If not, open it from the menu (V

In my very basic solution under Visual COBOL Personal Edition 2.2, I am getting the below error message when I try to view my form's design: To prevent possible data loss before loading the designer, the following errors must be resolved:The variable 'WCLRRTS' is either undeclared or was never assigned. I have did a find on my entire project and can find NO reference to this variable at all.  If I chose to ignore it, it always eventually shows back up.  My Visual Studio 2010 Professional is working fine as I use it almost daily as a programmer for my employer.  This is the strangest thing I've ever seen.  Prior to this, I got this error when I added another form and then deleted it from the project / solution.  I ended up deleting that project off of my hard drive and starting all over again.  Now I'm back to this error once more.  What is this in reference to?  I did not create it as far as I know.  Perhaps some process in the background c

Hello, I'm having a problem with an ACCEPT on a group item from the SCREEN SECTION. If the SCREEN SECTION has something like: 05 SCREEN-LINE-1.      10 S-GRAB-DATE.            15  LINE 1 COL 10 PIC 99 USING THE-MONTH.            15 LINE 1 COL 12  '/'.            15 LINE 1 COL  13 PIC 99 USING THE-CC.            15 LINE 1 COL  15 PIC 99 USING THE- YEAR. Then in the code do: ACCEPT S-GRAB-DATE. I am able to edit the month field but as soon as I hit Enter the cursor does not go to the THE-CC field. It just terminates the whole accept for that group item, instead of going to the next field within the group item. I can TAB to the next field within the group item, but not NewLine/Enter. This works on our AIX version of ServerExpress but not our

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 19 April 2011]How I can move from one windows form to another with Visual Cobol?. And how I can create those on my project and I can Hide and Un-Hide?. Please let me know where I can find one example. My email is: jose61@pryma.ws

Chris, I was thinking that, within the same class, you could have multiple methods with the same name (ID), provided that each occurrence of the same-named method had a different and unique signature.  However, it appears from the attached demo that this is not true (?)... or. more likely, I have done something wrong.  See the attached demo which is an extension of your CCW Tutorial.  To test, go to the caller program and comment out the invoke of ManagedMethod2 and uncomment the invoke of ManagedMethod that is using custRecord and aNumber.  Also go to the called program and in Class1 change the method ID on the 2nd method from ManagedMethod2 to ManagedMethod.  Then debug.  You should get a parameter count mismatch error.  Not that when you put everything back the way it originally was, you don't get an error... it works (it's just not with using overloaded methods).  Maybe overloads don't work when you are doing OLE calling? Thanks,

I have an embedded SQL statement to read a single row that contains varchar data from an Oracle database. My code seems to be correct as I do not get any errors and it runs to success. However the data I am getting back almost looks like it is encrypted. Other data types are correct. It is only the varchar data that is not. My COBOL program is running Server Express 5 on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86_64) but the database is on Windows 2008 Enterprise 32-bit. I am not sure is this has anything to do with the problem.#COBOLORACLEEXECSQLCOMPILE

Attached are the demo programs used in the OOP for COBOL Webinar Series: Webinar 4 - Collection Classes

Dear Sirs, I Get an Error  2012 with " CALL 'MQCONN' USING ISER-QM-NAME, HCONN, RETCODE, REASON"   Please Help Me PJM

Hi all I moved an indexed vision 4 file from SCO Unix to Windows server 2003 by an FTP manager (Cute Ftp). In Unix the file is working properly with no problems but In win2003 server using Acu Cobol 7.0 could n't open it and get an 39 error on open. I tried to rebuild the file and I gor the messages : "Chain of records is broken!" and "11 records recovered 6275 records lost" Using other than primary keys to rebuild i reached to recover 275 instead of 11 records but it's a big loss either way. After I tried several rebuilding options with no result I tried to use "-load" option of vutil32 but in that  case i got more than half records of the file send in .rej file as with illegal Duplicated keys which is not logical as the file is working in SCO Unix properly. I tried also to recover the file manually by a START, READ program and ERROS_OK 1 in configuration file but it reads no more than one record. I also tried to read the data-segment portion of the index file indivisually like

Visual COBOL has been shortlisted for a Tech Hero Award, and it's the public who get to decide the winners! If you think Visual COBOL is a worthy winner, then please show your support with a vote. You can read more about the awards and Visual COBOL here.#VisualCOBOL

Note that if you are following along with the Visual COBOL Call - CCW Tutorial... and you do everything that is called for in the tutorial except that you forget to put in the "$set ooctrl( P)" compiler directive at the top of the native caller Program1... when you run it in debug, you will get a "105 Memory Allocation Error:  Program1".  Putting this directive in will solve the problem.  

Note:  In a Native COBOL program, if you are using the "CLASS-CONTROL." subsection in order to define your classes (to be used in later invocations of managed classes from your native program)... note that if you have more than one class definition to be defined in class-control... that you can only use one period within this subsection.  Else (if you have more than one definition and end each with a period), you will get syntax type errors such as "PROCEDURE DIVISION missing or unknown statement" and "COBOL Division or Section header encountered in incorrect order". Austin

I have reviewed the documentation for Debugging COBOL Applications remotely, and that applies to windows applications. Are there steps or tutorials for debugging web applications thru IIS? I can get the breakpoints to work, using Remote Debugging for Windows. But the watch windows don't work. It sounds like a symbols issue, but I'm not sure how to resolve it.

I'm a mainframe cobol programmer and have been for many years.  What is the differences between these 2 applications and which would be better for me.

Hi, Im having trouble with CBL_COPY_FILE library routine error 3385... The file is not being copied and wStat-byte2 is returning 3385. The file I'm copying though is about  107chars long (including the directories). Could that be the cause?  Anyone? Checking status code below; 01  wStatcode       pic x(2) comp-x. 01  wStatcode redefines wStatcode.       05  wStat-byte1       pic x.        05  wStat-byte2       pic x comp-x.    #netexpress

Hi, I was wondering in visual cobol the files I read and write to are they in Access and Excel format?  Do I use SQL to access  these files and how to I tell the program where to look for the file.  The last part I can probablt figure out when I get the software.