Rocket® COBOL

Created On:  14 June 2012 Problem: When running a large Visual COBOL managed code application, a .NET exception of type Stack Overflow occurs.  What is the cause of this exception and how can I diagnose a solution to it? Resolution: Stack Overflow Exceptions in COBOL for .NET Overview                 A stack overflow exception is thrown when an application consumes too much stack space. In .NET, an exception of type System.StackOverflowException will be thrown when this occurs. Typically, this is caused by too many nested method calls or unchecked recursion. Usually a coding change can circumvent the issue. It’s worth understanding how this issue can occur, what impact COBOL compiled for .NET may have, and how to diagnose and resolve the problem. Defining the Stack Size                 The initial allocation of the sta

Created On:  03 July 2012 Problem: Application is using its own error handler routine which is set using CBL_ERROR_PROC library function.  Within this procedure a call to CBL_FFND_REPORT is made in order to create a fault finder report under certain conditions.  One of these conditions is when a RTS 173 error occurs (or some other specific RTS error).How can the error procedure find out which RTS error number it is currently processing so that it knows whether or not to call fault finder? Resolution: When the error procedure is called a RTS error message is passed to it as a parameter.  You could parse this parameter to look for the exact RTS error that occurred: Parameter Passed to the Error Procedure When an installed error procedure is called, the characters containing the relevant RTS error message is passed as a parameter. You should define this parameter in the Linkage Section as PIC X(325), and include it in the USING phrase of the

Created On:  31 May 2012 Problem: Is it possible to explicitly cause the focus to move to a desired TextBox on a Windows Form depending on a condition that is met in the program? Resolution: Yes, this can be done by using the Focus method of the Control class.  There is an example program attached to this article.  The description of this program is as follows:                          TESTFOCUSThis example program demonstrates how to explicitly set focus to a specific control on a form depending on some contition in the program by using the Focus method of the control class. This form has on it three TextBox controls and a radiobutton group. The focus will be set to one of the three TextBox controls depending on which radio button is selected. The CheckChanged event is fired on a radio button whenever that state of the button is c

Created On:  31 May 2012 Problem: The Net Express 5.1 documentation includes a section on how to use Web Services with the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit.  This is found under Help > Contents > Programminmg > Web Services > Chapter 3: COBOL Web Services using the Microsoft SOAP Toolkit.The example in the documentation is no longer valid.  Can you please give me a new example of how to use the SOAP Toolkit? Resolution: Microsoft's Soap Toolkit has not been supported by Microsoft since 2005.  Microsoft now recommends that you use Visual Studio .NET to create Web Services or to create Web Service clients. The creation of COBOL web service clients in .NET is fully supported in Net Express .NET running under Visual Studio or in Visual COBOL. The Microsoft Toolkit 3.0 still seems to work OK but the sample in the NX 5.1 docs is now invalid as the Toolkit registry name has changed as well as the example web service no longer exists. The following is an updated ve

Created On:  03 July 2012 Problem: A ListView control has been defined in a Windows Forms application under Visual COBOL.The ListView has multiple columns defined.When using the Add method of the Items property the first column can be populated with data as follows:      invoke listView1::Items::Add(myString) How can each individual column be populated with a data field separately? Resolution: There are several ways to do this, including binding to a list or other object but the following is a real simple method. You need to create a ListViewItem and then add the subitems to it.  The first item is the first column and each subitem is the next column etc. method-id button1_Click final private.01 row type ListViewItem.procedure division using by value sender as object e as type System.EventArgs.     set row to new ListViewItem("Column1 Data")    invoke row::SubItems::Add("Column2 Data") &nbsp

Created On:  31 May 2012 Problem: I have many TextBox controls on my Windows Form and I would like the focus to automatically jump to the next control when the TextBox control is filled with text.  How do I do this? Resolution: There is an example attached to this article that demonstrates one method of accomplishing an autotab functionaility for TextBox controls on a Windows Form.Example Description:                     TESTAUTOTABThis example program demonstrates one method of implementing an autotab function to move between controls when a TextBox field is filled to iots maximum length. There are 4 TextBox controls on the form and each has its maxlength property set to 3. Everytime a character is entered into one of the TextBox controls a TextChange event is triggered. Each of the TextBox controls has the method check_TextChanged set as its event handler. The eve

Created On:  05 July 2012 Problem: How can I retrieve the individual columns of data that are selected in a ListView control in a Visual COBOL Windows Forms application? Resolution: The following is an example which populates a 3 column listview with data and then sets the 2nd row to be the selected row and then when a button is clicked it will extract the columns from the first selected row into appropriate data items which in this simple case are strings.class-id testlistview.Form1 is partial   inherits type System.Windows.Forms.Form.working-storage section.method-id NEW.01 row type ListViewItem.procedure division.    invoke self::InitializeComponent    set row to new ListViewItem("R1Column1 Data")    invoke row::SubItems::Add("R1Column2 Data")    invoke row::SubItems::Add("R1Column3 Data")    invoke listView1::Items::Add(row)    set row to new

Created On:  05 February 2012 Problem: Our COBOL source files use the extension ".cl2".When I bring these files into Visual COBOL Eclipse and edit them they do not appear with the same editor colorization or background parsing as when I use the a standard extension like .cbl.Is there a way to modify Eclipse so that it recognizes my extension as being a COBOL source program? Resolution: Here are the instructions for adding a new extension as a COBOL content type in Eclipse so that your files are recognised as COBOL programs throughout the IDE:  (in this example we are adding .cl2) 1. Navigate to Window->Preferences2. Navigate to General->Content Types3. Open up Text and then Micro Focus COBOL Project Types4. Click on COBOL Source File5. You should now see the default list of file extensions we recognize for the COBOL source content type6. Click the Add... button7. Enter the extension you desire (in this case, *.cl2)8.&n

Created On:  25 May 2012 Problem: When using the XML GENERATE statement in my COBOL program datanames are all being converted to upper-case when they appear in the XML as tags.Is there a way to get it to retain the case that is specified for the datanames in the program?Example:01 Customer.     05  CustName         pic x(20) value "Mike".     05  CustCompany   pic x(20) value "Micro Focus".01 xml-doc                  pic x(100).     XML GENERATE xml-doc from Customer     results in:MikeMicro Focus  Resolution: You can retain the mixed case used in the datanames by using the compiler directive:$set preservecaseExample:01 Customer.05 CustName pic x(20) value "Mike".05 CustCompany pic x(20) value "Micro Focus".01 xml-doc pic x(100).XML GENERATE xml-do

Created On:  04 May 2012 Problem: When creating a new project in Net Express and trying to animate a program only a command text box is displayed and the animator never displays the actual source code.  What could be wrong? Resolution: The problem can be caused by having the incorrect local working directory specified under Animate > Settings.If you create a new Net Express project by copying an existing projects .APP file into a new location you might run into this issue as the local working directory may be set to the location of the previous projects file.If you are using a template project then you should specify a directory like .\\ which means current directory instead of hard coding the name of the folder.Look under Animate > Settings an make sure that the local working directory is set to the correct project folder. Incident #2572077 Old KB# 35932

Created On:  18 May 2012 Problem: An ADO database connection was defined using the Visual COBOL ADO Connection Editor on the development machine.  We moved the application to a production machine on which COBOL Server 2.0 is installed.  When the customer runs the application on this production computer they get an error in the CONNECT statement.Are these ADO connection settings automatically exported along with the .EXE?  Do we have to define those connections on each client machine? Resolution: The connections created by the ADO Connection Editor for managed code are not automatically brought over with you application but they can be exported on the development computer and then imported on the COBOL Server machine. Open up the ADO Connection Editor on the development computer and click the Export tab. Here you can select the connections that you wish to export to an xml file. Bring this file to your Server computer and start ADO Connecti

Created On:  18 May 2012 Problem: How can I retrieve parameters when running a PL/1 program in native Windows? Resolution: If the program is being run under the Enterprise Server / Enterprise Developer JES environment, then accessing the parameter string works exactly the same way as under mainframe batch execution, receiving the parameter contents into a CHAR VARYING field named on the PROC statement. However, if the program is linked as a .exe, and is being run under native Windows, this may not work as expected. The section of the documentation that describes how to retrieve parameters when executing under native Windows can be found on our documentation website in the topic titled Open PL/I User's Guide > Using Open PL/I > Running a Program > Accessing Command-Line Arguments in Open PL/I Programs. In the attached zip file is an example of using this technique to access individual command line arguments, as well as the entire command line argument string, in

Created On:  15 May 2012 Problem: When converting an application from a Net Express native Windows project to a Visual COBOL managed .NET project the run-time tunable settings stored in the file COBCONFIG.CFG which is pointed to by the COBCONFIG environment variable are not being picked up when the application is run.  Why is this? Resolution: Although the COBCONFIG environment variable/COBCONFIG.CFG file is still used in Visual COBOL native projects it is not used by Visual COBOL managed code .NET projects.To set tunables in a managed code .NET project you need to do so by using an app.config file in your project.To add an application configuration file, the project needs to be one that will output a main program (.EXE).Right click on the project name in Solution Explorer and select Add-->New-->Application Configuration file.Then double-click on the app.config file in your project to open it in the XML editor.Tunables are set as follows: Old KB# 359

Created On:  15 May 2012 Problem: Visual COBOL 2.0 introduced a new run-time tunable called printer_raw_redirection which causes output sent to a file defined as:    select file-name assign to PRINTERto be redirected to the Windows print spooler as raw data when running in a managed code .NET application.This enables you to send Printer Control Language (PCL) escape sequences directly with your print data.  When setting this tunable in the .NET app.config file, however I get a file status of 9/004 returned when the file is opened for output.  Why is this? Resolution: In order to use the printer_raw_redirection tunable you must also set the printer_redirection tunable on first in your app.config file.You can set this up in your app.config file as follows: Old KB# 35950

Created On:  31 May 2012 Problem: When attempting to compile a COBOL program within Server Express, the following error is returned:Micro Focus LMF - 010: Unable to contact license manager Resolution: There are several reasons why this error may be returned.  Perhaps the License Manager is not running.  In which case, do the following:- Log in as root. - Go to the directory in which License Management Facility is installed (by default it is /usr/lib/mflmf or /opt/lib/mflmf depending on the operating system). - Enter the command: ./lmfgetpv- If  the License Manager is not running you will need to manually start the process using the command: sh mflmmanWhen you start up the License Manager, the file /tmp/LMF-common is created.  If this file does not have the correct read/write permissions, then the LMF 010 error will not be resolved.  So you must ensure that this pipe file has sufficient permissions.If the error still persists, kill the

Created On:  18 May 2012 Problem: When debugging a program in Net Express is there a functionality which allows you to stop running the debugger when the contents of a data item is changed? Resolution: Yes, this is called a Break on Data Change and is available for data items displayed in the Watch List.  There is a STOP icon at the right of the Watch List control that enables/disables Break on Data Change.  If you "Examine" a data item it is diplayed in an Examine List dialog box and you can "Add to List" to add it to the Watch List and from there you can toggle the Break on Data Change for the data item. Incident #2573041 Old KB# 35954

Created On:  29 May 2012 Problem: In Visual COBOL for Visual Studio I have a WPF Form on which I am specifying binding between several TextBox controls and properties specified in a COBOL class.  When the form is initially loaded the binding works correctly and the value of the specified binding properties are correctly displayed in the appropriate TextBox controls.But when the values of the properties in the binding object are updated, the form itself is not being updated automatically as it still shows the previous values when displayed.  How can I bind to a COBOL object and have the updated properties automatically reflected when the form is displayed? Resolution: In order for a bound control to automatically pick up changes to the values of it's bound properties you must implement the INotifyPropertyChanges interface within your object.An example program is attached to this article.Here is the description of this example program: WPFBINDTEXTThis examp

Created On:  23 May 2012 Problem: In Rumba there are quite a lot of different file extensions for example: *.csf, *.cbr, *.mnc.  What do these file extensions represent? Resolution: This list may not include all possible file extensions available but it will have covered most of them:RDPS (Desktop Profiles) RSDA (AS/400 display Session Profiles) RSDM (Mainframe display Session Profiles) RSDU (UNIX/VAX display Session Profiles) RSDH (HP display Session Profiles) RSPA (AS/400 printer Session Profiles) RSPM (Mainframe printer Session Profiles) MAP (keyboard map files) RMC (macro files) MNC (menu configuration files) HSP (hotspot files) SNC (synchronization files)CSF (Scripting language files)CBR (Customised toolbar files) Old KB# 35966#Rumba

Created On:  31 May 2012 Problem: There are several different operation codes available with the EXTFH file handler for doing random reads on an indexed file. 8E READ (random) WITH NO LOCK R I DA READ (random) WITH LOCK R I DB READ (random) WITH KEPT LOCK R I F6 READ (random) R IWhat is the difference between F6 READ (random) and 8E READ (random ) WITH NO LOCK? Resolution: The difference comes down to the lock mode that is set on for the file.FhOp-Read-Random-No-Lock value x'8E' will always read a record without obtaining a lock for it, regardless of the lock mode used.FhOp-Read-Random value x'F6' will either lock a record when read or not lock a record when read depending on the lock mode used in the open.If lock mode automatic is set, then FhOp-Read-Random will lock the record.If lock mode manual is set, then FhOp-Read-Random will not lock the record.fcd-lock-mode pic x comp-x Lock mode flags for shareable files: Bit 7 - Lock on multiple records Bit 6 - WRITELOCK di

Created On:  29 May 2012 Problem: I have an application that is calling the Micro Focus File Handler directly by coding calls to EXTFH.  I wish to read a record in an indexed file as if the following COBOL statement was being executed:READ test-file IGNORE LOCKSo that it will return the record to the program even if the record is currently locked by another process.There does not seem to be an opcode documented that will do a READ IGNORE LOCK operation although the phrase is available within COBOL syntax.  How do I accomplish this? Resolution: The IGNORE LOCK functionality is turned on using a bit setting in the FCD description for the file. To turn this on set the appropriate bit on and then use a READ RANDOM operation code, for example FAF6.Look at the fcd-config-flags - bit 0.fcd-config-flags pic x comp-x• Bit 7 - WRITETHRU • Bit 6 - Use relative byte address • Bit 5 - Update current record pointer • Bit 4 - For FCD2 use fcd-reladdr-big for relative byte addre

Created On:  23 May 2012 Problem: Creating an installation package with the tool OnWeb Web-to-Host pro MSI packager and the installation on a client machine via the file .msi is successful, but an error occurs when launching the file .html:Error message : 1900 An error occurred when downloading one of several componants Pro Client on your computer. This error can be linked to a certain number of issue, including an electricity failure or the end of you network activity. The installation has been canceled and the session won’t be run. In order to get technical assistance and solve this issue please contact your system administrator. Resolution: Error 1900 is a generic error message so here it means there is somehow a mismatch between the html file created and the components selected in the msi packager to install on the client machine.You will need to select the components in the msi packager that are actually used in the html file.For example, there will be a problem (and t

Created On:  17 May 2012 Problem: Application was originally developed as native code using Oracle's Pro*COBOL and Net Express using the COBSQL directive.The following statement was used to change the format of DATE columns so that they would be returned in MM-DD-YYYY format.EXEC SQL ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'MM-DD-YYYY' END-EXEC.This worked correctly under Net Express and Pro*COBOL.  After converting the application to Visual COBOL managed .NET code using the OpenESQL preprocessor the date columns are no longer being returned in the format specified in the set NLS_DATE_FORMAT statement.They are instead being returned as YYYY-MM-DD format. Resolution: This is a compatibility issue with DATE formats between Pro*COBOL and OpenESQL.In OpenESQL columns defined as DATE will always be returned in YYYY-MM-DD format regardless of the setting of NLS_DATE_FORMAT.To get around this you must use the TO_CHAR function on the DATE column so that the data will be retu

Created On:  09 May 2012 Problem: A customer is still running Net Express 4.0 to support some older versions of their software.  We mistakenly applied WebSync 4.0.008 and this is causing some problems because we need to be at the 4.0.004 level instead.  Is there a way for us to go back to websync 4.0.004 without doing a complete uninstall/revoke and reinstall of Net Express 4.0? Resolution: In Net Express 4.0 you can uninstall the WebSync and leave the base product release still installed by going to Control Panel > Add Remove programs and then click on the Change/Remove button.  Select All WebSync WrapPack in the list of components and click uninstall.  It will then be back at the base release and you can install any other WebSync level that you like. Incident #2572964 Old KB# 35941

Created On:  18 May 2012 Problem: How do I write to a printer on Windows when my text includes embedded Printer Control Codes (PCL) and ESC sequences?I have tried using the run-time tunable printer_redirection=TRUE to redirect output to the Windows Print Spooler but when I use these ESC sequences they are being stripped out and I am not getting the formatting that I expect.How can I write to a Windows printer that is not attached to LPT1 and have the printer recognize my PCL codes? Resolution: There is a new run-time tunable introduced in Visual COBOL 2.0 that provides for this capability in managed code .NET programs.It is called printer_raw_redirection and it can be used in conjunction with printer_redirection to allow you to write directly to a Windows printer and still use your embedded PCL codes.See the attached example program called testprintraw.Here is the description of this example: TESTPRINTRAW This sample program demonstrates the capability of printi

Created On:  29 May 2012 Problem: I have a native code COBOL application that sends data records to a specific printer under Windows.  These data records have Printer Control Language escape codes embedded in them.I know that there is new functionality in Visual COBOL 2.0 to allow for managed code .NET programs to send a file to a printer in RAW format but how do I do this in a native code program? Resolution: The native code program can call a managed code program by using COM Interop functionality of .NET.  Attached is a Visual Studio Solution that demonstrates how this can be done.The description of this example is as follows:VCPRINTRAWThis example program demonstrates how a file containing Printer Control codes (PCL) can be sent to a printer as RAW data so that the esc sequences will not be stripped out by the Windows print driver. Starting in Visual COBOL 2.0, two methods of accomplishing this task have been added for managed code .NET programs