Rocket® COBOL

Problem: MQ Series and SQL calls in the same program produce this error: Creating library DEBUG\\MQsqlACD.lib and object DEBUG\\MQsqlACD.exp MQsqlACD.OBJ : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _ODBCRW32 DEBUG\\MQsqlACD.exe : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals Rebuild complete with errors Resolution: Normally MQSeries COBOL programs require the LITLINK directive, however when you use sql you cannot use this directive as it causes link errors.  You need to remove the litlink directive and use a procedure pointer to load the mqseries dll like follows: Use the Procedure-Pointer method, which will permit the same program to be run on a machine running MQSeries Client, or the MQSeries Server.   This does not require the addition of MQMCB32.LIB or MQICCB32.LIB when creating EXE or DLL.        IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.        PROGRAM-ID. 'MQODBC

Problem: This article documents two simple extensions to the Micro Focus Dialog System ListView control/object.  Both new features are implemented by modifying the standard generated ListView control program within Micro Focus Net Express. Resolution: This article covers the ability to change the column headings and to set focus on the ListView control.  This uses a modified version of the standard Micro Focus Dialog System ListView demo to illustrate the extensions detailed in this article.  You may wish to download the attached demo so that you can review the code while reading. Our first addition to the ListView functionality is the ability to change the column headings after the control has been created.  This required us to add a new function (UPDATE-HEADER) to the ListView control program (LVIEWCTL.CBL). Firstly, open the LVIEWCTL.CBL source file within Net Express, and review the new code.  All the

Problem: A non-COBOL program will be passing parameters to a COBOL program, and some of the parameters will be floating point items. Resolution: COMP-1 and COMP-2 are "floating point" numeric USAGE data items. They are defined as follows:        77  single usage comp-1.        77  double usage comp-2. COMP-1 is a "single precision" floating point item. COMP-2 is a "double precision" floating point item. COMP-1 items use four (4) bytes of storage. COMP-2 items use eight (8) bytes of storage. The COMP-2 item's greater precision is a consquence of the additional memory that allows support of larger numbers. These items can be initialized with a "floating point" literal. The literal format is unique.              [sign] mantissa E [sign] exponent The "sig

Problem: A web application may appear to be able to create an output file from the development machine with the Solo webserver. Once deployed on an IIS server, the output file may not be created. Resolution: Make sure the output file is created in a directory where the application has permissions. Since the application in some instances is executed by IIS, which has its own user id to execute the web application or access some allowed resources, make sure it has access to the directory where the appplication will create the file. Old KB# 7126

Problem: When running the dfconv utility I am getting an DFC507 error. Resolution: For numbers above 500, subtract 500 and then look for that number in the RTS Error Messages topic. (9/007) COBRT007 Disk space exhausted (Fatal) The disk is full. Resolution: This error can be trapped, but once it has been reported you must do a STOP RUN immediately to terminate your program's run. When your program has terminated, delete any files that you no longer need. Alternatively, if your operating system supports this, put a new disk in a floppy disk drive and redirect your program's file operations to this. ################################### Check that you have the correct drive, also whether you are pointing to a folder that is read-only Old KB# 7085

Problem: What is the format of the connect statement when using a File DSN? OpenESQL application using a File DSN to CONNECT returns a -19703 SQLCODE. Resolution: The following formats are supported: 1. EXEC SQL        CONNECT USING        'FileDSN=testfile.dsn;UID=user;PWD=passwd'                     END-EXEC                                              2. EXEC SQL        CONNECT USING         'FileDSN=test2file.dsn'         END-EXEC 

Problem: These two errors occur because the programs are linked with different threading models. Runtime DLL 'CBLRTSM', version 3.1, entry point mF_ld_dynlnk_lib_check not recorded in registry, not found or incompatible with requirements of dynamically bound COBOL program. Dynamic binding of RTS requires: Runtime DLL 'CBLRTSS', at least Version 3.1 Runtime DLL 'CBLRTSS', version 3.1, entry point mF_ld_dynlnk_lib_check not recorded in registry, not found or incompatible with requirements of dynamically bound COBOL program. Dynamic binding of RTS requires: Runtime DLL 'CBLRTSM', at least Version 3.1 The version numbers and entry point name will vary depending on the application. Resolution: These errors occur when a calling program has been created with one threading model and the called  DLL has been created with a different threading model. The fix is to rebuild the application programs and use a consistent th

Problem: When attempting to apply the clu01all.exe licensing fix can cause the installation process to hang. Resolution: Occasionally this happens when attempting to apply the fixes from the Net Express 4.0 CD-ROM.  Downloading and running the fix from the Micro Focus Supportline web site (http://supportline.microfocus.com) avoids this problem. Old KB# 7144

Problem: Unable to call a Microsoft C from a COBOL program.  The call never went into the C function. Resolution: This was caused bythe C functon not being exported as an entry point in the DLL.  The simplest mechanism is to add the __declspec( dllexport ) declaration to before the C function.  This specifies that the function is to be made visible in the DLL. Old KB# 7127

Problem: If you want to make an colour expressed in Red Green Blue (as in the GUI Class Library) then you cannot simply subtract a value from each of the RGB values. Resolution: To make an RGB  lighter you first need to convert and RGB value to a H S L value. This is Hue Saturation and Light, and is an alternate way of expressing a colour numerically. The L can then then be altered to lighten the colour, and then HSL can be converted back to RGB. There are well know algorithms to do this, and I have attached a COBOL implementation to this KB Item. Attachments: RGBtoHSL.cbl Old KB# 7080

Problem: In DG COBOL, a file is restricted to 4 alternate keys, what is the maximun number of alternate keys supported by Net Express? Resolution: Net Express allows up to 252 alternate keys in an indexed file. Old KB# 7140#RMCOBOL#netexpress#AcuCobol#ServerExpress#COBOL

Problem: The documentations state the following suggestions: "Provide a login on the UNIX system, and configure the .rhosts file to enable transparent login without requiring a password. See your UNIX documentation for details on how to do this." Resolution: Look at the "Alternative Security Mechanism: SCP Daemon Method" to enhance security. This topic can be found from the Net Express Help at Contents\\Using Net Express\\UNIX Option\\UNIX Option Guide\\A: Installing Samba and SCP\\Configuring SCP\\Alternative Security Mechanism: SCP Daemon Method This will force the user to key in valid user id and password in order to deploy on Unix. It is important that the user who starts the daemon from the Unix side has a root access. Old KB# 7132

Problem: A third party source code control product is installed using the SCCS interface as recommended by Micro Focus. However, after starting Net Express the 'Source control' menu item has not appeared. Resolution: If the 'Source Control' menu has not appeared, the Net Express IDE has failed to load the specified SCCS interface dll. First check that the dll specified in the registry exists. For example: If you have a Merant (Serena) PVCS VM installation, the registry setting is HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\SourceCodeControlProvider\\Data = SOFTWARE\\Merant\\Integrations\\SCC Check what HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Merant\\Integration\\SCC\\SCCServerPath Data value is. In that case this is set to C:\\program files\\merant\\devint\\vm\\devint\\bin\\pvcs_ifc.dll When you start Net Express, it loads this dll, which is the SCCS interface dll. If the load fails, no 'Source Control' menu will be displayed, and as described above: The re

Problem: What are the steps required to embed a specific icon into an executable? Resolution: To associate an icon to an executable file (.exe or .dll): Have your project open in the release build or at least so you see the executable in the left hand window.  Then: 1. From the tool bar select File > New > Resource 2. Highlight icon, right click and select Import- then browse to your desired  .ico (icon) file and select it 3. Save the resource file created by selecting File > Save 4. Add the rc file to the project source pool (right hand side of project) 5. Drag the rc file to left hand side and make sure it is added under the executable - you should get the message 'would you like to add compiled types to the package' - Answer Yes and select OK (the .res file will now appear under executable) 6. Rebuild project and look at executable in Windows Explorer and it will appear as the specified icon Old KB# 7

Problem: An attempt to do an INSERT into a MS Excel worksheet fails with SQL error code -39 that says "invalid character value for cast specification null." Resolution: Make sure the value to be inserted is allowed in the receiving field. For example, inserting a non-numeric value into a numeric field will fail with the SQL error code -39. To resolve it, either change the receiving field as alpha or make sure the value is numeric before inserting it. Old KB# 7109

Problem: How to search for files with a certain extension (e.g. *.cbl) in a directory using a Cobol program. Resolution: Use the X'91' function 69 routine. A loop can be used to retrieve many matched files as shown in the excerpt of code below: [...]    move 'd:\\dir\\*.cbl' to f-filein    move spaces to f-fileout    call x'91' using f-result,                           function-code, *>69                          f-parameters.    move 1 to f-action    perform search-files until f-error = 1 or 2 [...] search-files.    if f-attrout >= 32       display f-fileo

Problem: I can use the following if I know the table name,  but need something when tablename is not known at compile time -            exec sql                declare ccurs cursor for                    query odbc columns tablename 'table'            end-exec Resolution: You need to use dynamic sql: 1.  declare the cursor to be used to fetch the column information            EXEC SQL                declare vcurs cursor for dynamic_sql            END-EXEC 2. &n

Problem: How can ORA_ROWSCN be accessed from Net Express? Net Express 4.0 Oracle 10g OpenESQL/ODBC Oracle ODBC driver 9.02.00.63 Resolution: It is possible to access ORA_ROWSCN by defining a TIMESTAMP host variable: ... 01  my-rowscn-hvar            sql type is timestamp. ...     ...         exec sql         select ora_rowscn, last_name into :my-rowscn-hvar, :my-last-name         from employees         where employee_id = 188     end-exec     ... Please note that Oracle's documentation would indicate that this is an Oracle 10g feature only. Old KB# 7129

Problem: The customer was making a CALL to a subprogram in the form of an external DLL. He was attempting to use the ON EXCEPTION clause of the CALL statement by using ON EXCEPTION CONTINUE. He did not have a NOT ON EXCEPTION phrase nor did he have an END-CALL or a period to end the CALL statement. He could not figure out why none of his statements following the CALL were being executed since he knew that the CALL was being executed successfully. The following is the sytax that he used: 100-TEST.      IF WS-TEST-TRUE           MOVE "PROG2"  TO WS-NEXT-PROG           CALL WS-NEXT-PROG USING RFVCODES RETRN-CD                 ON EXCEPTION CONTINUE           CANCEL WS-NEXT-PROG  &nbs

Problem: There is an issue when installing Net Express 4.0 on the D: drive of Windows 2003 Server machine using the standard setup.exe. When trying to compile programs you may get the error: ASLM:  Semaphore failure ERRNO 1002 Resolution: The problem here is that the setup process attempts to create a log file on the c:\\  drive by default, and if you don't have a c:\\ drive, it can't write the log. To avoid this problem, you can redirect the log file elsewhere by supplying a parameter to the setup command. So, drop to a command prompt an change directory to the location of the setup.exe (let's assume this is on D:\\) and type the command D:\\setup\\setup.exe /ini=d:\\setup\\nxsetup.ini /logfile=r:\\thelogfile.txt This will run the setup.exe from your D:\\ drive and write the logfile to your r:\\ drive. Alternatively, you can uninstall the product from the D: drive and resintall it on the default C: drive.  

Problem: PLS-00422 no PL/SQL translation for the bindtype given for this bind variable Cause: A host variable was passed (by an Oracle Precompiler program, for example) to PL/SQL for binding. However, its datatype is not compatible with any PL/SQL datatype. So, the binding failed. Action: Change the datatype of the host variable to make it compatible with a PL/SQL datatype. Calling a stored procedure with COMP variable. Using Oracle precompiler. Resolution: Ensure that the host variable definitions are suitable for the columns being used. For example, with a host variable defined as PIC S9(13) COMP, this should be changed to either PIC S9(9) COMP for an integer field, or PIC S9(13) COMP-3 for a decimal-type field. Old KB# 7112

Problem: This error may be encountered when compiling a COBOL program from a project. Resolution: This error is caused by the fact that the "message files" cannot be located.  These files are found in mflang*.lbr.  In order to solve the problem, the PATH environment variable should be changed so that it can locate these files. Old KB# 7128

Problem: The WHEN-COMPILED is a special register that can be used as the subject of a MOVE to a 20 position field. 01  DISPLAY-COMPILE-TIMESTAMP      PIC X(20). MOVE WHEN-COMPILED to DISPLAY-COMPILED-TIMESTAMP. Resolution: Old KB# 7066

Problem: Changes to DSDEF.CFG are effective when using the Net Express IDE, but not when using Application Server.  Where does it have to be located so that the file is picked up? Resolution: Place the dsdef.cfg file in the current directory of the application OR Set the DSDIR environment variable to the drive and path to where the file is located DSDIR=drive:\\path\\dsdef.cfg Old KB# 7037

Problem: When trying to remotely debug a program on a UNIX machine the following error appears: "Remote Machine not found" Resolution: Instead of using the IP-Address use the machine name to be put that in the "Remote Machine Name" box. This can be found in Animate > Settings > 'execute remotely' section in the bottom left corner. Old KB# 7070