Rocket® COBOL

Problem: The word "INSTANCE" was not a reserved word in Net Express 3.1 but it's now a reserved word in Net Express 4.0. Resolution: As a workaround, use the REMOVE compiler directive and re-compile. ie:      REMOVE"INSTANCE" Old KB# 5200

Problem: How can control be returned from a Dialog System Entry-Field after a specified time if the user does not input anything? Resolution: A TIMEOUT may be configured for this. >>> TIMEOUT 500 NEXT The second parameter of a timeout specifies the waiting time in hundredths of a second, after which the procedure defined by the third parameter is executed. Here: "NEXT" is executed after 5.00 seconds After the timeout occurs, please check, if there was a change on the entry-field. If there was a change, do not leave the entry-field, because the user may just enter something. Be aware, that programmed controls like a ListView, by default, do not cause a Lost-Focus-event for an Entry-Field. If the user can change to a programmed-control, please invoke its SET-FOCUS method to cause the LOST-FOCUS event for the entry-field. ------------------------------------------------------- data fields ------------------------------------ EF2-

Problem: Net Express install displays message that application server is installed. Resolution: To workaround this error message when attempting to install Net Express 4.0, the following needs to be done: Using the REGEDIT tool, rename: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Currrent Version\\Uninstall to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Currrent Version\\Uninstall-temp Start the Net Express 4.0 setup. When the first setup screen is displayed, rename the key back to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Currrent Version\\Uninstall Continue the setup. Old KB# 5240

Problem: Does Net Express support displaying Unicode characters in a console application? Resolution: Character Dialog System and ACCEPT/DISPLAY do not support Unicode. Old KB# 5251

Problem: There is some confusion about how the VALUE NEXT phrase works when it is defined for a 78 level constant data-item that is embedded within a group item containing the REDEFINES clause. Using the example below, the following questions are asked: Is there any reason why the value of MTCount is 23 and not 12?   Is there any reason why uncommmenting TABLE-TWO will correct the problem?        01  TABLE-ONE.            78  LTSize                 VALUE 17.            78  LTStart                VALUE NEXT.            05  WS-LEVEL-TABLE.   &n

Problem: In the following example when all values on the right are 0 - gives a result of 1 - why? COMPUTE A = 1 * (B/C) (D/E) (F/G) If the value of C, E and G are changed to 1, then the result is 0. Resolution: The results beong returned are expected behaviour. The COBOL standard dictates that the result of a division by zero when no ON SIZE ERROR phrase is specified will be unpredictable (see the extract from the documentation below). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The ON SIZE ERROR Phrase and NOT ON SIZE ERROR Phrase If, after decimal point alignment, the absolute value of a result of an arithmetic operation exceeds the largest value that can be contained in the associated resultant-identifier, a size error condition exists. Division by zero always causes a size error condition. Note that the results of division by zero when no ON SIZE ERROR phrase is specified are unpredictable. The size error condition applies

Problem: The user is creating com objects with Net Express 4.0 . On  his developement machine they work fine, but on his production machine when he tries to register the com object using regsrv 32 he receives the following error message: "runtime dll "oops version 4.0, entry point "oops" not recorded in registry not found or incompatible". He has application server for Net Express with .net and application server for Net Express 4.0 installed on production machine and they both have lastest updates applied. Resolution: Adding the location of Application Server for Net Express 4.0 to the path environment variable  resolved the problem Old KB# 5216

Problem: How to use the SetWindowText Windows API in a COBOL program. Resolution: Character user interface. RUNW.EXE -  COBOL TEXT window.        SPECIAL-NAMES.            CONSOLE IS CRT            CRT STATUS IS WA-FUNCTION            CALL-CONVENTION 74 IS WinAPI.        WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.        01   wHwnd pic xxxx comp-5.        01   statusCode pic xx comp-5.        01   SetWindowTextReturn pic xxxx comp-5.        PROCEDURE DIVISION.            display spaces upo

Problem: Net Express 4.0: Where to find additional information in regards to 'extended file status codes'? Resolution: Use the Net Express Help : a) IDE -> Help -> Help Topics -> Index -> Extended File Status codes -> File handling includes hints on how to check these codes by programming. b) IDE -> Help -> Help Topics -> Index -> Extended File Status code provides all run-time codes related. Old KB# 5224

Problem: Using Net Express 4.0 and receiving the message: ASLM: Semaphore failure ASLM: errno 1002 on the Net Express development PC. Resolution: The environment variable COBDIR must point to the actual Net Express\\base\\bin directory and may point additionally to further directories like DialogSystem. Please ensure that COBDIR does not point to an older version of Net Express: Open a Net Express Command Prompt, enter > set COBDIR to verify that COBDIR has a correct value. Old KB# 5232

Problem: Net Express 4.0 with .NET Does SQL(DBMAN=ADO) in .NET give access to all ADO.NET functionality? Resolution: The current version of Net Express with .NET documentation states: 1) Existing ODBC applications can be supported by using the SQL(DBMAN=ADO) compiler    option.  An application can use both ODBC and ADO.NET but not within the same    source program. 2) However, it is stated that ADO.NET does not have all the features of ODBC.  Also    the storage and performance characteristics may also differ. 3) Additional EXEC ADO statements have been added to Net Express with .NET.  These    allow access to the ADO.NET objects that OpenESQL uses at run time. Old KB# 5223

Problem: Using "inspect ... converting" to convert signed, EBCDIC numeric data to signed, ASCII numeric data. Resolution: The example program, "CONVERTING.cbl" (see attachement). illustrates how to use an "inspect ... converting" statement to translate EBCDIC numeric display values to equivalent ASCII numeric display values. The following syntax is used.       INSPECT identifier-1 CONVERTING identifier-6 TO identifier-7 "identifier-1" is a pic x(9) item initialized to a hexadecimal value 'F1F2F3F4F5F6F7F8D9' that is equivalent to "123456789-", a signed, numeric display value on an EBCDIC computer system. "identifier-6" is a table of the numeric EBCDIC characters that might appear in a signed, numeric display item. There are three groups of possibilities. The first group, (C0C1...), are positive, unsigned digits. The second group, (D0D1...), are negative, si

Problem: How to assign or determine the client-id that is required for a server-side file in a web application. Resolution: Look under Help>Programming>Distributed Computing>Part 8: CGI-based Applications>Part 32: Server-side programming>Maintaining Application State>The Server-side State Mechanism for a complete overview of this topic. Basically the set of MF_CLIENT_STATE callable routines can be used to manage the state for each client (Browser) session that invokes the CGI program. When the client starts the browser and the HTML page executes the server side CGI program for the first time, the CGI program can use a call to MF_CLIENT_STATE_FILE which will return a unique client-ID and will allocate the state record used by the calls. The client-ID is then stored within a cookie on the form so it will be passed back to the server each time a new form is posted. This information is all stored on the server and it is accessed by the cli

Problem: File systems on different operating systems can use different size addressing. Most current file systems use 32-bit or 64-bit addressing. The operating systems/file systems using these two sizes are listed below. Resolution: The File Handler is configured to work with either 32-bit or 64-bit addressing. It is vital that all applications sharing a file use a File Handler configured the same. Otherwise, data corruption can occur. You can configure the File Handler to use 32-bit addressing in a file system that uses 64-bit addressing. In this case, all files will be safely limited in size (to 32-bit addressing) by the File Handler. 32-bit file systems: - Windows 95 - Windows 98 - Windows Millennium - Windows NT (FAT) - Windows 2000 (FAT) - Windows XP (FAT) - UNIX without large file system enabled 64-bit file systems: - Windows NT (NTFS) - Windows 2000 (NTFS) - Windows XP (NTFS) - UNIX large file system - Linux File syste

Problem: When updating the Net Express 4.0 product where can the various fixpacks be found? Resolution: With Net Express 4.0 fixpacks are now bundled together so only one wrappack module will have to be downloaded and installed. It will start with ALLnn. Download and save this file and then run it while Net Express is closed. Old KB# 5208

Problem: Release: Net Express 4.0. Can an Application Server install silently with Application Server Service Pack only? Resolution: Yes, it is not necessary to install the Application Server directly from the CD. The related Service Pack file aps*a*.exe (e.g. aps05a40.exe)  can be used instead. 1. Prerequisites: - The APS Service Pack needs to know, where the Application Server should be installed.    Set the following registry entry, e.g.:    HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Micro Focus\\Net Express\\4.0\\COBOL\\4.0\\Setup\\apslastfulldir = "C:\\MyApplicationServerDirectory" - The APS Service Pack needs to know, where the License Database should be installed.    Therefore a registry entry must exist similar to:    HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Micro Focus\\ASLMF\\ASLMFDIR = "C:\\mfaslmf"    Please use aslmpclocate.exe to locate the license database, e.g. to C:\\mfaslmf 2.

Problem: Working under Windows XP as a user and received the following message: Failed to create database file. Check that existing file is not locked. Attempted to create file : C:\\Documents and Settings\\All Users\\Application Data\\Micro Focus\\Net Express\\4.0\\SYSTEM.DAT The attempt to create a new system database failed. The original database will be restored. Resolution: Net Express will create an application data file named "system.dat" in the location designated for application data. The location is normally C:\\Documents and Settings \\All Users\\Application Data \\Micro Focus\\Net Express\\4.0 All users running Net Express should have write permissions to that location in order to create/update the file. As this is the recommended location to use for application data you will find that other applications will also be creating/updating files under ".\\AllUsers\\Application Data\\." so the relevant permissions will be

Problem: What is a return code of 128 from STOP RUN/GOBACK? Resolution: If a program simply terminates with a STOP RUN or GOBACK then the value returned to ERRORLEVEL is undefined.  Basically it could be anything from an OS value through to a piece of uninitialized memory. When using ERRORLEVEL with a COBOL program then it is necessary to explicitly control/set it within the program code.  For example:      ...      move 12 to return-code.      stop run. or      ...      stop run returning 12 size 4. or      ...      move 12 to return-code.      goback. or      ...      goback returning 12 size 4. Old KB# 5192

Problem: How to convert a sequential file to an indexed file using a cmd file. When deploying a Net Express project to a client machine that doesn't have Net Express installed and it is necessary to convert a sequential file into an indexed file before the file can be used in a COBOL program how can this be done using a cmd file? Resolution: Run rebuild from a command prompt. ....\\RebuildProject\\rebuild<Enter> Rebuild will display it's usage on the screen grouped into four categories: Rebuilding; Validation; Recovery; and Converting. Refer to Related tab above for a text copy of the following information. Rebuild command line options, Net Express 4.0, All04n40.exe, 1/26/2004 1) Usage for rebuilding: rebuild in-file[,out-file] [ /option ...] /i[:command]    - rebuild and display information /v[:n]                - display running count ever

Problem: When examining a data record during program animation -  sees X"2020202020" instead of X"09". This happens with Net Express 3.1 base version. Resolution: In all versions of Net Express the answer is to use the EXTFH.CFG file with the following options: [XFH-DEFAULT] EXPANDTAB=OFF and set the environment variable EXTFH to: EXTFH=X:\\directoryname\\extfh.cfg Old KB# 5212#netexpress#ServerExpress#AcuCobol#COBOL#RMCOBOL

Problem: Case: When migrating from Net Express 3.1 to 4.0, there exist 11 .DLL files that are believed created using Net Express 3.1 but it is unsure if the original project or source code still exists. Is it possible to tell if these Dynamic Link Libraries were indeed created by Net Express instead of by a 3rd party compiler such as Microsoft C/C ? Resolution: The answer is yes, there is a way to identify an existing executable (.EXE) or Dynamic Link Library (.DLL) file as being generated by Net Express. Using a binary editor or a program dump utility, open the .DLL file and search it using this tool. If no binary file editor is available then it is also possible to open the file using a standard text editor like Windows Notepad but since the information being displayed is not standard ASCII text it will look very strange. It will however, accomplish the task at hand. After opening the .DLL file within the editor it is necessary to perform a text Fin

Problem: Can a Dialog System .IMP-file be exported / imported from the command-line? ---- Importing the .IMP-file by the GUI-interface to a new screenset, duplicate "ESC and Window-Created-events" are reported. OK, they could be manually deleted from the global dialog and the existing auto-created window. But (how) can this be done automatically by the import? Resolution: Yes, both are possible by using the command-line interface of the DSWIN.exe, e.g. from a Net Express Command Line. The command-line interface offers a possibility to overwrite the existing auto-created content of an "empty" screenset. An export of the screenset can be initialized by: /e screenset-name [output-filename] The IMP-file can be imported by: /i import-filename [screenset-name] which can also be used to add the imp file to an existing screenset. The /i may cause the same problems with ESC and WINDOW-CREATED events when importing by the GUI-interf

Problem: This article provides instruction and a demonstration regarding how one can detect when a program developed with Net Express with .NET 4.0 is running under the control of the CLR (.NET Common Language Runtime). Resolution: Functionally, the method of detection involves two steps: 1. use the MF function CBL_GET_OS_INFO 2. look at the bit 5 of cblte-osi-rts-capabilities When = 1, it means that the program is running under the control of the CLR The demo program showing how this is used follows.   Note: To run this demo, the latest update (ALL04N40.exe) needs to be installed in the Net Express 4.0 product.       $SET SOURCEFORMAT"FREE"        program-id. CLRprogOrNot as "CLRprogOrNot".        environment division.        configuration section.      

Problem: What is the definition of the XML-CODE's that can be returned from XML-PARSE?            XML PARSE WS-XML-DOCUMENT               PROCESSING PROCEDURE 20000-PROCESS-XML               ON EXCEPTION                  DISPLAY 'XML DOCUMENT ERROR ' XML-CODE                  STOP RUN               NOT ON EXCEPTION                  DISPLAY 'XML DOCUMENT PARSED SUCCESSFULLY'           

Problem: Processing text files containing "tab" delimited data. Resolution: Create an "extfh.cfg" File Handler Configuration file with these settings. (TABXMPL.TXT is a text file name that contains "tab" characters.     [XFH-DEFAULT]     BASENAME=ON     [TABXMPL.TXT]     EXPANDTAB=OFF The default setting turns BASENAME ON. The TABXMPL.TXT setting turns EXPANDTAB OFF for a file named "tabxmpl.txt". This will preserve the "tab" characters as each record is read making it possible for a program to detect these characters in a text file record. The following is an example program that will isolate each element of data delimited by a "tab" character.       $ set Ans85 Mf"10" NoOsvs NoVsc2 NoAlter NoQual DefaultByte"00"            select textFile assign 'tabxmpl.txt'    &nbsp