Rocket® COBOL

Created On:  17 October 2012 Problem: We want to be able to activate our Cobol 2010 Runtime licenses via their Proxy Server but when doing so see the following error: Error: Unable to comunicate with Micro Focus ,The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required. Resolution: Please note that this issue is resolved in Visual COBOL version 2.1, if you are using a previous version of this product please try the following: To allow for safe net license activation through a proxy server you can use the following CesAdminTool.exe.config file modification, this file is normally placed in the following folder: C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Common Files\\SafeNet Sentinel\\Sentinel RMS License Manager\\WINNT\\CesAdminTool.exe.config The proxy configuration will be set in internet explorer , for further info you could read http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sa91de1e(v=VS.90).aspx To make it work, you should modify the file with:   <> 

Created On:  17 October 2012 Problem: If experiencing errors when using Visual COBOL for Eclipse you can see the errors in the Eclipse log file, it is not easy to see how these errors occur in realtime or when exactly they occurred, or know what Eclipse is doing at the time of the problem. Resolution: You can start the Eclipse IDE with the consolelog option, this will show you events/errors as they occur on a console, and this could help you understand which areas of the software are affected. > Open a Visual Cobol command prompt and type:> cd C:\\Program Files\\Micro Focus\\Visual COBOL\\eclipse\\ > press enter> then type:> eclipse.exe -consolelog > press enter You will see a console window open up and in there what Eclipse is loading/doing. NA. Old KB# 36446#COBOL

Created On:  17 October 2012 Problem: It is already known that Net Express 5.1 version is compatible with IBM DB2 v9.7. How about IBM DB2 v10? Resolution: It is up to the database vendor, in this case IBM, to determine what version of the Micro Focus products is compatible with their database products.According to their Support for Database Application Development in COBOL page, Net Express 5.1 is supported with IBM DB2 version 10.1 for Windows. Here is the link to the IBM page: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/db2/10.1.0?topic=compilers-cobol Incident #2590932 Old KB# 36452#netexpress

Created On:  25 October 2012 Problem: This article explains how to display the value of a configuration variable from within the ACUCOBOL-GT debugger. Resolution: To display the value of a variable set in the environment or in the cblconfi, the name of the variable must be preceded by a %. For instance, to inquire the value of CODE_PREFIX, this is the command line to use: d %CODE_PREFIX Incident #2281877 Old KB# 36506#COBOL#archive

Created On:  24 October 2012 Problem: The following error was encountered whenever customer starts the VISUAL COBOL for Eclipse in Windows: Failed to load the JNI shared library “c:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk1.7.0._03\\bin\\..\\jre\\bin\\server\\jvm.dll” Customer previously installed the 64-bit version of Java J2EE IDE for Eclipse and the latest 64 bit Java SDK on a Windows 7 64 bit machine. He is able to start the Java IDE for Eclipse but not the Visual COBOL product. Resolution: This is an issue on the Eclipse IDE and it is due to 32/64 bit compatibility between the java virtual machine installed on the customer’s machine and the version of Eclipse.  The Eclipse version shipped with Visual COBOL is running in 32 bit and customer has 64 bit JDK. As seen in the error displayed, Eclipse in 32-bit is trying to execute the program in a 64-bit java installation.   The fix for this Eclipse issue is taken from this link: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.ini   In

Created On:  17 October 2012 Problem: I want to be able to comment/uncomment blocks of code in Visual COBOL for Eclipse but cannot see any button for this.  In Visual COBOL for Visual Studio there a button to do this. Resolution: In Visual COBOL for Eclipse 2.0 you can comment/un-comment a block of code using the following technique:-First under Windows > Preferences > General > Appearance > Colors and Fonts > Under Basic make sure that the two Entries “Text Editor Block Selection Font” and “Text Font” have the same font and font size set, e.g.  Courier new 10.-Then in your Cobol Editor windows/View select a block of COBOL code, then on the Eclipse menu you will see a button called “Toggle block selection mode” (keyboard shortcut Alt Shift A), this will allow you to select a block in the editor, select column 8, once you have selected the column you can press the * and you code will be commented. You can repeat the operation but instead of pressing

Created On:  22 October 2012 Problem: The AS/400 Scheduled File transfer fails to run. Resolution: AS/400 scheduled batch transfer feature enables users to schedule file transfers to run at a desired time. It provides the ability to execute the file transfer sessions unattended. It can be configured with various options and the file transfer profiles will be executed accordingly. The important thing to remember is that the scheduled batch window must be active in order for it to execute file transfer profiles included in it at a scheduled time. Please perform the following steps to run a scheduled batch file transfer: · Launch a file transfer profile (.RTO) file · Then click on Transfer -> Batch to launch Batch Transfer window · Open a batch file transfer profile (.BTF) by clicking on the “Open” button · Click on the “Run Batch” button and it will launch scheduled batch window. Leave this window active in order for the scheduled batch transfer to run the file transfer pr

Created On:  17 October 2012 Problem: You can use ANT to compile COBOL Files from the command line in Visual COBOL for Eclipse, but how can this be done for individual COBOL programs? Resolution: First ensure your COBOL environment is set up and ensure the mfant and ant-contrib jar files (from the Visual COBOL bin directory) are on your classpath. Assuming your project is in c:\\workspace\\fred, your build configuration is called “New Configuration”, and you want to compile program1.cbl and program2.cbl, use the following command line: ant -f .cobolBuild New_Configuration.FileCompile -DfilesList="C:\\workspace\\fred\\program1.cbl,C:\\workspace\\fred\\program2.cbl " You can modify the entries in the -DfilesList parameter as needed. NA. Old KB# 36447#COBOL

Created On:  16 October 2012 Problem: We are reading in a report file for additional processing. Some numeric fields were printed out with leading spaces but when we try to process them with Micro Focus we are getting an 'invalid numeric data in numeric field' error. The runtime error is a RTS163. Our program is moving a field read in from a file into another field defined as a PIC Z type variable to suppress the leading Zeros to SPACES for our final results. We have tried various options but cannot get this to be accepted as an actual numeric data item. Resolution: Although IBM and Micro Focus say one should use valid data in processing any Cobol arithmetic statements, Micro Focus will also flag invalid data found in a MOVE statement. We have cut down your program to the following sample. Since we could not get the sample to pass an IF NUMERIC test, we needed to restore the leading Zeros to our field. The sample simulates data read in from a file by moving hexadecima

Created On:  25 October 2012 Problem: Executing an OPEN OUTPUT on a Vision file, file-status is returned with a value of 39,01. ACUCOBOL-GT documentation says that this status means: “Existing file conflicts with the COBOL description of the file. (open) Mismatch found but exact cause unknown (this status is returned by the host file system)”. Resolution: More specifically, this error may be caused by the structure of the Vision file that is going to be opened. If the indexed file is of version 3, the limitation for split keys is 6 segments maximum. Vision files version 3 that have more than 6 segments in a split key can generate error 39,01 when an OPEN is executed. This can be solved reducing the number of segments or upgrading the file system to Vision version 5, which presents a higher limit (16 segments maximum). Incident #2431301, 99-008951 Old KB# 36508#archive#COBOL

Created On:  26 October 2012 Problem: How do you set a combo box on a Windows Form to read-only?  It is not one of the combo box properties like it is in the properties of a Textbox control. Resolution: You can disable the Combobox so that no data can be entered into the Textbox portion or the list portion of the control as follows:      set comboBox1::Enabled to false If you want your users to be able to pick from the list but not enter a value in the Textbox then change the dropdownstyle property to dropdownlist.      set comboBox1::DropDownStyle to type ComboBoxStyle::DropDownList Incident #2597108 Old KB# 36516#COBOL#VisualCOBOL#netexpress

Created On:  25 October 2012 Problem: In a runtime session, it is easy to obtain TMP / TEMP path by reading environment variables. Is it possible to read client machines paths from within a Thin Client session? Resolution: To obtain client machine paths, a Windows API can be used. This is a brief COBOL program that explains how to call this DLL. IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. PROGRAM-ID. getPATH. REMARKS. ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. SPECIAL-NAMES. DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA. INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. FILE-CONTROL. DATA DIVISION. FILE SECTION. WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. COPY "ACUCOBOL.DEF". 01 WS-PATH PIC X(200). LINKAGE SECTION. SCREEN SECTION. PROCEDURE DIVISION. MAIN-LOGIC. ACCEPT TERMINAL-ABILITIES FROM TERMINAL-INFO IF IS-REMOTE SET ENVIRONMENT "DLL_CONVENTION" TO "1" CALL "@[DISPLAY]:kernel32.dll@WINAPI" CALL

Created On:  25 September 2012 Problem: Customers started already working with Windows 8 and MS SQL Server 2012, which are not officaly supported by our version 9.1.1. Resolution: Our just released version 9.1.2 officially supports Windows 8, SPARC running Solaris 11 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012. N/A Old KB# 36376

Created On:  01 October 2012 Problem: If two Fileshare servers are on two different physical servers but both have the same name (and each connected to its own local MFDS), and both were started at the same time then one would fail to start with a duplicate name error. Resolution: By default MFDS will generate UDP broadcasts for search events. These broadcasts will be picked up by all/any local servers which then results in this duplicate name problem (even though each Fileshare server is using its own MFDS)In order to prevent this happening and hence allow both of these Fileshare servers to exist on local machines, it is necessary to prevent the UDP broadcast search events. This can be configured on the "Options" / "General" tab as on the screenshot belowNote that Routers will usually filter out UDP broadcast packets so it is only a problem where the 2 machines are on the same local network. Incident #2593610 Old KB# 36378#COBOL

Created On:  19 September 2012 Problem: Customer is using Visual COBOL for Visual Studio 2.0 to create a native COBOL application that uses embedded SQL to access a SQL Server database through ODBC.  The ODBC DSN has been setup to use the SQL Server driver and the Text Connect button is successful in the ODBC Administrator.  When the customer starts OpenESQL Assistant in Visual Studio it correctly displays the list of available DSNs and when they are expanded the list of tables is also displayed.  When a table is checked and the Assistant tries to display the columns it displays an error that no columns are defined for the table.  What is the problem? Resolution: Check to see if the ODBC DSN is using an out of date SQL Server ODBC driver. You should upgrade to use SQL Server Native Client 10.0 or later instead of the standard driver for SQL Server. What happened is that in Visual COBOL 2.0 OpenESQL changed the default behavior to mainframe and the Assist

Created On:  20 September 2012 Problem: Because of missing symbolic links to the multi-threaded Xerces shared objects, you will receive the following load error when executing threaded programs that use Xerces on UNIX platforms:Load error : file 'cobrtxml_t.so'error code: 198, pc=0, call=1, seg=0198 Load failure (No such file or directory)orLoad error : file 'cobrtxml64_t.so'error code: 198, pc=0, call=1, seg=0198 Load failure (No such file or directory)This issue occurs both with 32-bit and 64-bit programs. Resolution: Create missing symbolic links (libxerces-c_t.so, libxerces-c_t.so.28, libxerces-c64_t.so, libxerces-c64_t.so.28) to multi-threaded Xerces shared objects (libxerces-c_t.so.28.0, libxerces-c64_t.so.28.0) provided in the product. Logged in as the root user : cd $COBDIR/libln -s libxerces-c_t.so.28.0 libxerces-c_t.soln -s libxerces-c_t.so.28.0 libxerces-c_t.so.28ln -s libxerces-c64_t.so.28.0 libxerces-c64_t.soln -s libxerces-c64_t.so.28.0 libxerces-c64_t.so.28

Created On:  19 September 2012 Problem: In certain instances CTF traces are not generated as expected.  This can be caused by mftrace being set somewhere else in the environment variables and sometimes this can be hard to find. Resolution: Stop the ES Region Open the Enterprise Developer command prompt and type SET MFTRACE_CONFIG=C:\\LOGS\\CTF.CFG next MFTRACE_LOGS=C:\\LOGS next CASSTART /RCICSSERV If CICSSERV is the region name.  Recreate and see if log files are generated now. To Stop the region when you start this way you must stop using the following command: CASSTOP /RCICSSERV * C:\\LOGS must exist and CTF.CFG must exist within the C:\\LOGS directory. Incident #2585243 Old KB# 36358#COBOL

Created On:  17 September 2012 Problem: I have a .NET managed code application compiled in Visual COBOL 2.0 which is using the PC_PRINTER_OPEN library call to print a document.  When making the call the application is setting the flags parameter to 8 which is supposed to cause it to print in landscape mode instead of portrait but it appears to be ignored and it prints in portrait anyway.  What is the problem? Resolution: There is a known problem in Visual COBOL when trying to set landscape mode using PC_PRINTER_OPEN in managed code.The flag will be ignored. This has been fixed but will not be available until Visual COBOL 2.2. The problem only exists in managed code as it prints in landscape mode fine in native code. Also, there is a workaround for the problem by calling PC_PRINTER_SET_DEFAULTS to change the orientation to landcape mode before the PC_PRINTER_OPEN call is done. This assumes that the printer you are opening in PC_PRINTER_OPEN is t

Created On:  10 October 2012 Problem: How can I improve the performance of my EZASOKET CICS application deployed to Enterprise Server? Resolution: By default the CICS CSKL listener will put out messages to the console when a client application connects to run a transaction:121010 16482581      12472 EZATEST  CASOP0000I 01 of 02 From (,,CSKL) EZY1325I 10/10/12 16:48:25 START SUCCESSFUL TRANID=EZT1 PARTNER INET  121010 16482601      12472 EZATEST  CASOP0000I 02 of 02 From (,,CSKL) ADDR=127.0.0.1 PORT=  8087With many clients these messages can be an overhead. Using the EZAC transaction it is possible to suppress the generation of these messages. If you run EZAC ALT CICS you can configure this as per the screenshot below. Incident #2587952 Old KB# 36428#COBOL

Created On:  19 September 2012 Problem: Customer has a Net Express native code application that uses the Net Express OLE Domain class library support to program Excel OLE Automation in COBOL.  Customer tried to move this into a .NET managed code program in Visual COBOL and it doesn't compile.  How can he use Excel OLE Automation from within a managed code program?The following code works in Net Express: $set ooctrl( P)ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION. FILE-CONTROL. ******************************************************************class-control.MSExcel is class "$OLE$Excel.Application".*****************************************************************data division.working-storage section.01 WS-CSVFILE  pic x(30).01 WS-XLSFILE  pic x(30).01 WS-PASSWORD  pic x(20).01 ExcelObject   object reference.01 WorkBooksCollection object reference.01 Workbook object reference.01 WorkSheets object reference.01 Worksh

Created On:  24 September 2012 Problem: This error has been encountered when attempting to install Application Server for Net Express 4.0 on a Windows Server 2003 machine.  The 16-bit components of the InstallShield software used for installation of old software may manifest this error on operating systems where the creation of short file names has been disabled (eg. by setting the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation registry value to 1).  To this end, the problem may occur with other older Micro Focus products as well. Resolution: This problem may be solved by moving the setup file to a location which does not use long spacey names in its path components (eg. the root of drive C) and running it from there. If this does not solve the problem, a change to the above registry value is usually required.However, the problem is usually resolved in the first instance by running the setup file from the root of drive C. Incident #2592909 Old KB# 36366#COBOL

Created On:  03 October 2012 Problem: Customer is converting from Server Express 5.1 on AIX to Visual COBOL Dev Hub 2.1 on AIX.He is using a cobconfig.cfg file that sets the run-time tunable multi_close_limit=10.This does not cause a problem under Server Express but under Dev Hub 2.1 it causes an error in the config file handling.Is this tunable still supported? Resolution: The multi_close_limit tunable was originally introduced because of a problem where the runtime ran out of file handles when repeatedly opening and closing the same file, in certain circumstances. The runtime was changed to allow re-use of file handles for equivalent access modes. The support for the multi_close_tunable was disabled in Visual COBOL 2.1 but it has actually been unsupported since about Server Express 2.2.Removing the tunable from the cobconfig file will resolve the problem. Incident #2594590 Old KB# 36397#netexpress#ServerExpress#COBOL#VisualCOBOL

Created On:  08 October 2012 Problem: How do I get the DMPAPER parameter for custom paper size - in this case it is 9x12? Resolution: With reference to the PC_PRINTER_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES (which sets one or more of the properties of the default printer for all PC_PRINTER_ routines), please set the P-PAPERSIZE flag to 0 - which Microsoft define as the custom setting.  Once this has been done, you can add your own values to P-PAPERLENGTH and P-PAPERWIDTH, to the nearest millimeter, to define your own custom page size. Incident #2595190 Old KB# 36413#COBOL

Created On:  25 September 2012 Problem: A Vision version 4 file is about 5 GB total size with 37 million records.  It has two keys and there is a need to specify an existing field as another key.  A COBOL program was created to read the existing file and write to the new file.  That program executed very slowly.  It had not finished after running for over a day.  The file is used for a batch process that must run every day so a faster method is needed. Resolution: The vutil -unload and -load options will produce much faster results in moving the data from the old file to the new file.  First, unload the data into a binary sequential file using:      vutil -unload -b originalfile tempfile Next create the new empty file with an OPEN OUTPUT from a COBOL program.  Next, after you have an empty file with the new definition load the data with:      vutil -load -b temptfile newfile Lastly rename the

Created On:  02 October 2012 Problem: Is Net Express compatible with Windows 8 and Windows 2012 Server? Resolution: Net Express and Server for COBOL products do not support Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012. Micro Focus will review this situation again in July 2013. Customers intending to deploy on this platform should do so using the Visual COBOL product line which supports Windows 8 deployment; Windows Server 2012 support is expected to be available later this year (2012). Old KB# 36391#netexpress#COBOL#VisualCOBOL