Rocket® COBOL

Created On:  05 January 2011 Problem: When you load a project and rebuild, you get an error message in the build tab saying: ERROR OPENING CDI2 HANDLECompiler: Error during creation of debug information file Resolution: This error message is displayed when a project has become corrupt. You will need to create a new project (.APP) file and then import the files that you were using in the corrupted project. Once you have imported the files, you should then be able to get a clean rebuild of the project. Incident #2472850 Old KB# 32768

Created On:  13 January 2011 Problem: A multi-threaded application returns this error without a real reason: "RECEIVE/WAIT in locked thread - deadlocked". This error began to occur after the upgrade to runtime version 8.1.0. Earlier runtimes the application did not encounter the error. Resolution: This error is usually shown when: - the application is executing either a RECEIVE or a WAIT statement - the current thread has no messages and it appears as locked. The tread may be locked for one of the following reasons: - a LOCK THREAD statement - INPUT-OUTPUT operations on a file - event procedure of a GRID control (ECN-3671) ECN 3671 has been introduced in release 8.1.0. This is its description: SUBJECT: Threads and event procedures Change Number: ECN-3671 Status: Complete Type of Change: Correction Priority: Medium Incidents: 99-047136 Date: 2007-04-11 Product: ACUCOBOL-GT Module: runtime New Version: 8.1.0 Machines Affected: All Known Versions Affected: All D

Created On:  12 January 2011 Problem: AcuSQL Version 8.x gives an “Invalid column name” error if the WHERE clause uses double-quotes around the value.For example:     WHERE COLUMN-1 = "ABC"This worked without error in Version 7.x but in 8.x the select fails with the error "Invalid column name". Resolution: AcuSQL for SQL Server version 8.0 changed the communication technology used to access SQL Server, from dblib to ODBC. This is due to the fact that dblib had been discontinued by Microsoft and was no longer supported. ODBC requires single quotes around string values, where the old dblib allowed double quotes.  This is a permanent restriction. To resolve the error modify the ESQL in the COBOL program to use single quotes around the WHERE value. Old KB# 32874

Created On:  23 December 2010 Problem: AcuXDBC Version 8.1.3 on Windows Server 2008 R2 gives a side by side error when trying to execute any of the batch files or xdbcutil directly. Resolution: The Server must have the correct Roles installed.  In the Windows Server Manager check which Roles are listed.  Add File Services and Application Server if not already present. Old KB# 32745

Created On:  11 January 2011 Problem: With AcuODBC users had the capability to access more than one table with the same name, and this was called multi-company support. How this can be done with AcuXDBC? Resolution: AcuXDBC offers convenient ways to manage multiple company data sets. For example, you may have two sets of data for Company01 and Company02. The layouts of the data files are the same, but the file names have different prefixes or suffixes. For example, ACCT01 and ACCT02 may be the accounting files for Company01 and Company02. They are stored in different directories. Rather than having to set up system catalogs for each of your companies individually, you can do one of two things: 1. You can have a different configuration file for each company. In this configuration file, you can use wildcards and substitution characters (defined in the configuration file) to identify which data files to access, allowing you to have a single system catalog that gets p

Created On:  06 January 2011 Problem: Given a date for example yyyymmdd how can we establish the day of the week (for example Sunday, Monday etc.) Resolution: The following program may help:      *****************************************      *****************************************       Working-storage section.       01  INPUT-DATE.           05  INPUT-YY                PIC 9(4).           05  INPUT-MM                PIC 9(2).           05  INPUT-DD                P

Created On:  31 December 2010 Problem: A General Socket error is generated because of AcuRCL setup and firewall issues.  Thin Client fails to connect to the server with the error connection failed "general socket error". Resolution: If you not using the default port, ensure the port is specified in the acuthin command (e.g. "acuthin server:port alias"). Verify that you are using the correct IP address or server name. Ensure that the Windows service or UNIX daemon is executing on the server by performing "acurcl -info".On Windows servers, ensure the service is installed by performing "acurcl -query servername". Verify that the client can communicate with the server by doing "ping servername" or "acuthin -p servername:port". If this fails, it would indicate a network configuration problem. Verify that the client can communicate with AcuRCL by performing "acuthin -p servername:port. Ensure that a valid AcuRCL configuration file is available and that the DEFAULT_USER is se

Created On:  11 January 2011 Problem: The License Manager is started and the he /tmp/LMF-common is created.  We get LMF 010: Unable to contact License Manager. Resolution: This message is displayed when the permissions of /tmp/LMF-common are not right . The permissions of /tmp/LMF-common must be prxwrxwrxw (LM-common is a pipe file). Incident #2494189 Old KB# 32839#COBOL

Created On:  21 December 2010 Problem: XML Extensions can be configured to not export empty occurrences when the XML EXPORT function is called.  Unfortunately, this option might cause non-empty occurrences to be suppressed in the output document. Resolution: A patch for the XML Extensions Runtime Library is available in the Product Updates page on the Micro Focus web site (http://www.microfocus.com).  This patch addresses the XML EXPORT issue with OCCURs. Incident #2453539 Old KB# 32736#XMLExportOCCUROCCURs

Created On:  16 December 2010 Problem: Licensing for Server Express Remote Development Option (RDO) is managed by the remote server and this includes issuing the Windows client license. When you start the Eclipse IDE for the first time on your client machine you will be prompted to enter the details of the license server.  If you make a mistake in entering the license server details, communication between the client machine and the license server machine will fail, thus returning the error message:ServerExpressRDO: Error: Feature "ServerExpressRDO" is not licensed to run on this server Resolution: When you start up the Eclipse IDE on the client machine, it only prompts for the license host the first time.  In so doing it creates a file called licensehost.txt which is stored somewhere on the client machine.  Having incorrectly entered the license server details, you will need to locate this file and then delete it.  In so doing, the ne

Created On:  15 December 2010 Problem: When trying to run the MFSORT utility from within a .bat file, an error occurs when attempting to redirect the output of MFSORT to a filename using command line redirection if the filename is specified as an environment variable.The following error will be written to the file an errorlevel will be set to 8.     "Unable to write to SYSOUT. Switching to console output instead"Example:@ECHO OFF SET OUTFILE=outfile.datECHO [�TE% %TIME%] Step MFSORT started. >> %OUTFILE%MFSORT USE DATA.DAT ORG LS RECORD (F,7) GIVE DATA.DAT SORT FIELDS (1,7,ch,a) >> %OUTFILE%ECHO [�TE% %TIME%] Step MFSORT finished.  Error Level = %ERRORLEVEL% >> %OUTFILE%ECHO Error Level = %ERRORLEVEL% Resolution: This can be remedied by setting the COBSW environment variable to S5 in the .bat file.Example:@ECHO OFFSET COBSW= S5SET OUTFILE=outfile.datECHO [�TE% %TIME%] Step MFSORT started. >> %OUTFILE%MFSORT USE DAT

Created On:  10 December 2010 Problem: Is it possible to obtain the Decimal Code of any ASCII character? Resolution: This simple COBOL program shows how to do it.       identification division.       program-id. ASCII-TO-DEC.       remarks.              environment division.       special-names.           decimal-point is comma.       input-output section.       file-control.       data division.       file section.       working-storage section.        01 ASCII-VALUE                 &nbs

Created On:  12 December 2010 Problem: Is it possible to remove a table from the catalog of AcuXDBC? Resolution: The best way to remove an existing table from the system catalog of AcuXDBC is using the tool "asql" located in the BIN directory of the AcuXDBC installation. This tool is a batch file that can have a .bat or a .sh extension, depending on the Operating System.To start the tool, just use this command line:C:\\>asqlSQL (/? for help) ==>A new prompt is shown. From here, it is possible to drop the table simply using this syntax:SQL (/? for help) ==> drop table mytable;If there are doubts about the name of the table, or about the owner of the table, just run this query:SQL (/? for help) ==> select t_owner, t_name from genesis_tables where t_name='MYTABLE'; T_OWNER                        T_NAME -----------------

Created On:  16 December 2010 Problem: An ASP.NET web application builds succesfully in Visual Studio but when trying to run or debug the application strange compiler error messages occur which point to source code in the App_Code subfolder or in temporary files. Resolution: The problem you are seeing is because you have an App_Code folder, which gets compiled at run-time and is only expected to be part of a Web Site, not a Web Application which is precompiled. What is happening is that the contents of the project, including the classes in App_Code, get built to an assembly but at run-time the ASP.NET server is compiling the contents of App_Code and specifying references to all of the project references plus the project output. That means that the compiler is attempting to compile classes with a reference to compiled versions of themselves and not surprisingly it is getting rather confused hence the strange error messages.If you rename your App_Code folder to a different na

Created On:  16 December 2010 Problem: How do you use COBOL syntax on an ASP.NET Web page to call Eval method for binding? Resolution: The .NET Framework Eval method is used on a web page to dynamically assign a value to an object in COBOL.For example, if you wanted to bind the value of the ProductID object to the text property of a grid column you could use the following:...<ItemTemplate>  <asp:Label ID="ProductID" runat="server" Text='<%# super::"Eval"("ProductID") %>'></asp:Label></ItemTemplate>' runat="server">If you are using this type of code on a web page in an ASP.NET Web application then you will also have to update your .aspx to include Language="COBOL" on the page.We don't specify the Language property by default so that aspx pages don't generate a reference to our CodeDom, so that it is not required on a deployment machine unless absolu

Created On:  10 December 2010 Problem: What do you do when you need to create documentation for the user-defined classes and methods declared in your .NET COBOL applications? Resolution: It is a good practice to provide descriptions of the classes and methods declared in your managed COBOL applications files by adding XML documentation comments in the source files. For example, the descriptions are used by the Visual Studio IntelliSense Quick Info feature that shows tool-tips about the classes and methods you can use. You can configure your project to generate an XML file with the comments at build time. From this file you can create documentation in CHM, Help 2 or MS Help Viewer format using a third party utility such as Sandcastle. To add XML documentation comments do the following: 1. Open your solution in Visual Studio. 2. Open a source file which is part of a managed COBOL project. 3. Position the cursor on a line preceding a method or a class declaration. 4. Type

Created On:  21 December 2010 Problem: What version of the Liant products are supported on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2? Resolution: Only Liant version 12.05 and above products are compatible and supported on Windows 7.  No Liant products older than version 12.05 will work properly, or, be supported on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Please contact your Micro Focus Maintenance Sales Account Manager for assistance with upgrading to the latest version of RM/COBOL. Incident #2493463 Old KB# 32734

Created On:  21 December 2010 Problem: We have installed the 32-bit Relativity Data Client, Data Server, or, Data Manager on a 64-bit Windows machine.  After the install, the Data Client, Data Server, or, Data Manager are unavailable in the ODBC Administrator located in the Windows Control Panel. Resolution: The 32-bit Relativity Data Client, Data Server, and, Data Manager are 32-bit ODBC drivers.  Therefore, you will not find them listed in the 64-bit ODBC Administrator.  The 64-bit ODBC Administrator can be found in the Administrative Tools area of the Windows Control Panel.In order to create 32-bit data sources, you must, instead, run the 32-bit version of the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator.  You will find it here:   C:\\Windows\\SysWoW64\\odbcad32.exe #RelativityODBC

Created On:  06 December 2010 Problem: What are the pre requisites when somebody wants to rebuild a new ACUCOBOL-GT Runtime on a UNIX/Linux platform with the integration with C-ISAM (on SOLARIS)? Resolution: To relink the runtime, use each platforms’ native ANSI C compiler. For relinking the runtime the GCC compiler is only supported on Linux platforms. Run a standard make runcbl in the ACUCOBOL-GT lib directory just to check if it’s working before running the integration with C-ISAM or other tools. If it’s not working, the two questions to ask are:Do you have a C compiler on your platform ? Which C compiler are you using ? For the special integration with C-ISAM: a) Ask if the IBM libisam.a file is a 32 or 64 bit version because if it’s a 32 bit version, you have to link it with ACUCOBOL-GT 32 bits and if it’s a 64 bit version, you have to link it with ACUCOBOL-GT 64 bits. b) Modify the filetbl.c file in the lib directory#define USE_CISAM 0 à #define USE_CIS

Created On:  09 December 2010 Problem: How do you call a SQL stored procedure/function that returns a value to the program? Resolution: The result parameter can be specified in the SQL call as follows:   EXEC SQL      :myResult = CALL myFunction(namedParam=:paramValue)   END-EXECOr you can specify an OUT parameter which will contain the value set in the stored procedure.   EXEC SQL      CALL getDept(:empName IN, :deptName OUT)   END-EXEC Incident #2491320 Old KB# 32652#VisualCOBOL#netexpress#Enterprise#COBOL

Created On:  09 December 2010 Problem: When creating an ASP.NET Web Site in Visual COBOL a run-time error occurs when trying to store an object into the Session object.This is ocurring because the Session object is not being instantiated so a NULL reference error occurs.Example: code behind program snippet for web page:class-id ShoppingCart is partial inherits type Page.           set mycontext to type System.Web.HttpContext::Current           set mystring to "TestSession"           set mycontext::Session::Item("TestItems") to mystring *> An error occurs on the above statement Resolution: Creating an ASP.NET Web Site in COBOL is quite different than creating an ASP.NET Web Project in that the latter has a Global.asax that handles Session_Start events that populates the session object. However, a simple change

Created On:  24 November 2010 Problem: I see a RaceOnRCWCleanup MDA when debugging COBOL WPF applications. Resolution: If you compile a COBOL WPF application for either x64 or AnyCPU on a 64-bit machine, when debugging it you might see Visual Studio display a Managed Debugging Assistant (MDA) warning you of the condition RaceOnRCWCleanup when the application exits. The default WPF template avoids this condition by including an OnExit handler which finishes with a STOP RUN statement. The OnExit handler is included in the main application class for the project (App.xaml.cbl by default). However, if you include your own handler for the Closed event on the main Window of the application, the OnExit handler is not executed and the MDA will reappear during debugging. Put the Stop Run as the last statement executed in your application code (so at the end of your Closed handler) to make it go away again. MDAs are provided by Visual Studio to warn you of potential problems in an app

Created On:  15 November 2010 Problem: Setting 'skip page after print' to true does not force the second detail to the next page when using html format, and Report Composer does not execute a page break when print preview is used. Resolution: The problem is not the Report Composer but the way that Windows preview API handles the HTML page format. When Internet Explorer's print preview window pops up there are two drop down list boxes, one to select how many pages to display and the other to select the size of the document to display. In the size list box the default value is "Shrink To Fit", that is the cause of the problem. When this option is selected it shrinks the HTML format to fit the page and it does ignores any next page characteristics. The problem can be solved very easily by making the browser fit the full screen using the restore up button in the upper right hand corner, and in the size list box select 100%. One that has been done the pages

Created On:  17 November 2010 Problem: Compiling a large program generates an “Extra segment exceeds 64k” error message. Resolution: The 64K limit is a permanent restriction and the solution is to split the program into smaller programs to ensure that the segment descriptor limit does not exceed 64K.  Alternatively you can reduce some of the unique fields you have in the working storage or screen sections.  One other thing is to look in the PROCEDURE DIVISION for reference modification of large fields and change the logic there if possible. Old KB# 32554

Created On:  16 November 2010 Problem: Thin Client users trying to connect to the application, receive the following message "alias does not exist", after they check the alias file, they discover that the file was empty. Resolution: In version 7.0 the way the alias files is stored on disk was changed: they are now stored as XML files.  However, some XML files cannot be parsed by the parser we use (even though we write them correctly).  Because of this, some people would like to keep the alias files in the old format.     There is a new environment variable ALIAS-FILE-IS-XML.  The default value of TRUE will cause AcuRCL to store alias files as xml files, which is how version 7.0.0 stores the files.  Setting this variable to FALSE will cause acurcl to keep the file as a text .ini file.  Note that this variable needs to be set in the environment when executing "acurcl -alias" (or "acurcl" with the graph