Rocket® COBOL

Problem: How can I change TERMCAP and TERMINFO entries to work with my program? Resolution: Terminal Interfaces The RM/COBOL runtime system uses two terminal interface mechanisms, TERMCAP and TERMINFO, to control cursor positioning, video display attributes, and function key mapping. TERMCAP and TERMINFO databases are supplied by the operating system manufacturer. However, these databases may not contain complete entries for the terminal you are using, and as a result, certain capabilities used by the RM/COBOL runtime will not operate properly. The RM/COBOL User's Guide documents the TERMCAP and TERMINFO capabilities used by the RM/COBOL runtime. This page includes sample TERMCAP and TERMINFO entries for some of the more popular terminals. (See below.) These sample entries are provided for your convenience as examples only. Liant assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these sample entries. Although the Support staff can assist you with general q

Problem: How can I define decimal numbers with ODBCLink/SE and InstantSQL? Resolution: In order to get numbers with fractional parts (i.e. decimals) the SQL data type must be SQL_DECIMAL.  The Image data types that convert to SQL_DECIMAL are: DECIMAL (Internal representation is packed decimal) Image Zoned (Z) Image Packed (P) Image I3 (48-bit integer) Image I4 (64-bit integer) It is certainly possible to have a BINARY (i.e. 32-bit integer physical storage) data item use a picture such as PIC 9(6)v99 -- at least this is possible in RM/COBOL, and is required by the COBOL standard.  So this might be the case where the implementation is overloading an underlying integer data type with a decimal scale factor (the V99 part of the PIC) that is not known to the Image database per se.   It would be interesting to find some capability of configuring the ODBC driver so that it will return SQL_DECIMAL for those Image fields that are described in COBOL

Problem: How to check if Windows opportunistic locking or write behind are set? Resolution: In the SupportTools folder execute the "suptool1.exe rmccheck" from a command prompt. You can also execute "suptool1 contents" for a complete list of the Window tools available. Old KB# 4689

Problem: How can I read/write from/to a UNIX named pipe? Resolution: See the attached source code examples. Old KB# 4682

Problem: How can I calculate the number of usage counts used for Relativity Data Server? Resolution: The connect.log created in the installation directorty contains info about the connections made to the Data Server. By far the easiest way is to use the 2 attached python scripts.  These will analyse the connect.log and calculate the number of license counts (usages) used and the actual individual users (plus machine name and IP address). To run.... 1.  Grab Python from the web and install. 2.  Run either script passing the connect.log  as the first parameter, i.e. c:\\connusers.py connect.log 3.  Sit back and enjoy the show!      Old KB# 4647

Problem: Will Relativity Data Server work with an MF Application server? Resolution: No, the MF Application Server does not supply the necessary files to relink the Relativity Data Server. You must have a MF Development system to do the relinking. Due to licensing issues RM must be able to relink the Relativity Data Server with the customer's MF development system.      Old KB# 4648

Problem: Can my COBOL program call a Windows DLL? Resolution: Yes, it can - if you construct a COBOL-callable DLL that in turn calls the non-COBOL DLL.   The CodeBridge capability that comes with the RM/COBOL development system makes that task very easy in most cases.  Little or no DLL programming is required if CodeBridge can be used.      Old KB# 4643

Problem: How can I import Excel data using XML? Resolution: Modern versions of Microsoft Excel have the ability to save a spreadsheet in the form of an XML document.  This is accomplished by using the 'XML Spreadsheet' option of the 'Save as type:'.  The resulting XML document is quite rich in the detail saved for the spreadsheet, including formulae used to produce cells, as well as cell values.  You may refer to the Microsoft web site for more information about this particular XML specification, named SpreadsheetML.  There are also several books devoted to using XML in the Office suite. Using XML Extensions, one can import virtually any detail of the resulting spreadsheet.  The attached example demonstrates the most common requirement: importing the actual data values from the sheet.  The example XSLT (XML translating stylesheet) assumes that the first row contains column labels, and determines whic

Problem: How can I convert an alpha string to uppercase? Resolution: See the attached source code example. Attachments: upper.cbl Old KB# 4683

Problem: How can I turn off the NoFiltOptfilter for a catalog when using a UNIX Data Server? Resolution: Place the following option in the odbc.ini file that's in the Relativity Data Server home directory, in the section for the DSN involved: NoFiltOpt=1 This should turn off the "push down" filter for that DSN, and allow all the rows to be returned by the query. If that doesn't solve the problem, then we can take a look at an ODBC trace to see what the might be causing it.      Old KB# 4655

Problem: How can I turn off the NoJoinOpt filter for a catalog when using the Data Manager? Resolution: Sometimes, the Relativity Data Manager's optimization filters do not work properly for Joins. This results in less efficient joins and poor performance. The following instructions will turn off the Join Optimization. First, backup your registry settings, then follow these steps: 1) On the Data Manager system, start the registry editor, regedt32. 2) Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\ODBC\\ODBC.INI\\dsn where dsn is the name of the data source for the catalog. This will make the change only on the specific data source desired. 3) Create a new string "NoJoinOpt" and give it the value of "1".   Now re-create the scenario where the problem occurs, and check the results.      Old KB# 4654

Problem: Do you have a Cobol program to count records in an index file? Resolution: The attached zip file contains a utility that allows you to get a record count for an index file. The utility is called RMRECX. An example COBOL program, TSTRMREC.CBL, is included that demonstrates the proper use of this utility. The index file must be closed in the run unit that calls RMRECX, because it has to open the file as a binary sequential file to get the number of records in it. A conflict occurs when the file is currently open as an index file. It can't open it both ways at the same time. When the index file is open in the run unit at the time RMRECX is called, the file manager has a physical file descriptor indicating it is an index file. Thus, the binary sequential open fails as an organization mismatch. If the file is not open, the file manager doesn't know that it is an index file and the open succeeds. In the attached RMRECX utility, the error status returned from t

Problem: Are there any Runtime performance considerations? Resolution: Taking the default settings will give the most consistant performance ratings. Be careful not to increase buffer size to the size that the OS has to consider increased swapping, or the Runtime will lose performance. It has been found that the defaults allow the file I/O to execute at optimum levels. Old KB# 4659

Problem: Why does runcobol hang with ssh on AIX? Resolution: It may be a "bug" in OpenSSH. Please see the lenthy discussion here: http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1102 Try applying the patch (http://bugzilla.mindrot.org/attachment.cgi?id=1002&action=view) mentioned in the bug and see if the problem is resolved.      Old KB# 4692

Problem: How can I pass environment variables to the COBOL runtime? Resolution: See the attached source code example. Attachments: cpass.cbl Old KB# 4639

Problem: How can I create an auto-erase ACCEPT? Resolution: Some user interface specifications require that a field with a default value be accepted 'as displayed' if the Enter key is pressed. If, however, the user starts typing in the field, the rightmost characters should be erased automatically, eliminating the need for the user to press repeatedly  the space bar to erase to rightmost characters of the displayed default value. The attached zip file contains a subprogram, display-autoerase, which implements this behavior.      Attachments: autoerase.zip Old KB# 4695

Problem: How do I convert an ASCII data file to EBCDIC characters? Resolution: See the attached source code example. Attachments: ebcasc.cbl Old KB# 4679

Problem: What does the error "The system file is not suitable" mean? Resolution: If you get the following message during installation: "16-bit MS-DOS Subsystem C:\\Windows\\System32\\Autoexec.nt. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application" There is a well documented problem in Windows XP SP2 that sometimes causes the autoexec.nt file to disappear. When this happens, running 16-bit applications will generate this message. C:\\Windows\\repair should have a backup copy of this file.      Old KB# 4673

Problem: Why can't I install RMCOBOL on my 64 bit Linux system? Resolution: You will need to edit the original install.sh and make sure the ARCH_TYPE section looks like this: case $ARCH_TYPE in     i?86)  MACH="i386"    ;;     3*)   MACH="i386"    ;;     x86_64)  MACH="i386"    ;;     sun4*)  MACH="sparc"   ;; . . . Just add the x86_64 line, so the script will recognize the output that the "uname -m" command returns.      Old KB# 4663

Problem: Are there any problems with using Windows Vista as a file server? Resolution: There is a problem when you try to use RM indexed files and Microsoft Vista as a file server: record locks do not function properly. The problem is a Microsoft defect and it is fixed with a Microsoft SP1 release for Vista. Since this is a Microsoft scheduled release, we have no date when it will be available. There appears to be at least four choices to get around this problem at the moment. We will include the information about the Microsoft hotfix and how to disable SMB2 in the registry, but the Vista SP1 is the safest route. There might be some risk in taking the hotfix and/or the registry modification. Solutions: Don't do Vista-Vista file sharing, or Wait for Vista SP1, or Apply the Microsoft hotfix, or Disable SMB2 in the registry. The following hotfix is available form Microsoft. "Access may stop responding when you open a remote database" ( http://suppor

Problem: How can I do a ProtocolTrace on the Windows client side? Resolution: You can enable TCP/IP protocol tracing on the client side with the following: 1. Back up your registry, then with regedt32 add a key to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\ODBC\\ODBCINST.INI\\ named "Simba Client" 2. In the "Simba Client" key add these String Values: ProtocolTrace and TraceOutput 3. Set ProtocolTrace equal to 7 4. Set TraceOutput to the desired trace file name (ex: C:\\temp\\trace.log) in the same section. Produce the output and send the log file to Liant support.      Old KB# 4649

Problem: How do I convert Gregorian to Julian dates (and vice versa)? Resolution: See the attached source code example. Attachments: julian.cbl Old KB# 4681

Problem: What is Unicode, UTF-8, ContentType and such? Resolution: Before you do anything at all with the web, or try to figure out Unicode, you should read this article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html      Old KB# 4672

Problem: How do I manually install the RM/COBOL Use Count Service on Vista? Resolution: You can manually install the RM/COBOL Use Count Service on Windows Vista by using the rmucs utility ( rmucs.exe) located in the RM/COBOL installation directory. Below is the rmucs usage information: rmucs /help rmucs [-install] [-start] [-stop] [-uninstall] If this service is not able to run properly, you will get the following error: Error invoking unauthorized copy of runtime. Windows function error (Loc 508).      Old KB# 4687

Problem: Do you have an example for Instant SQL? Resolution: Yes, SQLDEMO2.CBL, attached. Attachments: SqlDemo2.zip Old KB# 4642