Rocket® COBOL

Problem: A customer migrating from the mainframe found that some of his programs were failing with the above error during execution. This was due to PERFORM VARYING statements where the subscript either started at zero, or went past the highest value in a table (e.g. went to 11 when the OCCURS was 10). Whilst he appreciated that such programming practices might be considered unsatisfactory, it was important that the programs should run, unmodified, on the new UNIX platform. Resolution: The compiler directive NOBOUND stops the automatic checking of subscripts at runtime (the default is BOUND). If you are building to generated code, you should also look at the NOBOUNDOPT directve, though using this may impact performance. Old KB# 4538

Problem: The following message is displayed : << *** This script must not be run from     inside the product directory. exiting ... >> Resolution: To install a fixpack , it is necessary to create a temporary directory. This directory must not be $COBDIR and, also, must not be a subdirectory of $COBDIR. Old KB# 4529

Problem: In trying to use the imtkmake, and a 115 error occurs: [root@LinuxMTO mapdemo]# imtkmake -defmap src=book.cbl service=wmapserv type=webservice -generate Micro Focus Interface Mapping Toolkit v1.0.00 Copyright (C) 2004 Micro Focus International Ltd. All rights reserved. Execution error : file '' error code: 115, pc=0, call=1, seg=0 115     Unexpected signal (Signal 6) [root@LinuxMTO mapdemo]# imtkmake -defmap src=book.cbl service=wmapserv type=webservice Micro Focus Interface Mapping Toolkit v1.0.00 Copyright (C) 2004 Micro Focus International Ltd. All rights reserved. Execution error : file '' error code: 115, pc=0, call=1, seg=0 115     Unexpected signal (Signal 6) [root@LinuxMTO mapdemo]# Resolution: For some reason the installation of Server Express wasn't correct and after a reinstall of the product this error disappeared and the deployment worked fine.

Problem: I have migrated my screenset from Windows onto RedHat Linux, and it doesn't display correctly, but it looks fine on AIX.  What is the problem? Resolution: The problem was that the customer was using the LANG default of en_US.UTF-8.  Unfortunately, character-based Dialog System does not support Unicode, so the colours are displayed incorrectly.  Changing the LANG setting to en_US enabled the screen to display correctly. Old KB# 4500

Problem: A customer had an application written in C and distributed on HP/UX PA-RISC platforms as shared libraries.  This application could be invoked from either C or COBOL by linking the libraries to a C or COBOL main program.  The libraries themselves depended on other libraries, and were originally built with -L and -l specifying the dependant libraries.  The 32-bit linker in HP/UX PA-RISC remembers -L locations as absolute paths, so at runtime the dependant libraries could be found even if SHLIB_PATH did not include their location.  Here is an example: Cmain or COBmain calls sub1 which calls sub2: > cat Cmain.c int main(int argc, char **argv) {     sub1(); } > cat COBmain.cbl         CALL "sub1". > cat sub1.c int sub1(){     disp_hello();     return(0); } > cat hide/sub2.c int disp_he

Problem: NetExpress 5.1 not printing in Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (Assumption is made that a default printer has been defined, and that it is connected to a USB port, not a legacy LPT parallel port) Resolution: In Vista, right-click on the NetExpress 5.1 icon, select "Properties", select "Compatibility Mode", and select "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)".  Click "OK".  NetExpress should now print on USB printer. Old KB# 4452

Problem: The output filename for XML should be "C:\\Files\\My File\\DATA.XML" However, after the program ran without any error a file "C:\\Files\\My" has been generated. Obviously the SPACE is truncating the name.              SELECT  XML-STREAM  ASSIGN            "C:\\Files\\My File\\DATA.XML"                          ORGANIZATION  IS  XML                          FILE STATUS   IS  XMLSTAT.        XD          XML-STREAM.  &nb

Problem: A column defined as numeric (10,0) and the host variable declared as PIC X(10).  If the value was 500 when selected from the database the host variable contained '       500'. With the Oracle 10.x pre-compiler the host variable contains '500       ' and this is causing a problem within the application. Resolution: Use the Oracle precompiler directive picx=varchar2. Old KB# 4418

Problem: In .NET it is now possible to create an Inner Class within a class. How to access this inner class from COBOL? Resolution: Accessing an Inner class by defining it in the repository section but there is the need to use " " to denote the inner class. For example:        repository.               class innerclass as "MyClassLibrary.TheOuterClassName TheInnerClassName"                   . will allow to create instances of the innerclass. Old KB# 4407

Problem: When converting sort exits(E15, E35),  the definition of the required fields in the online HELP menu(DFSORT) in Net Express is very good; but there were three fields that caused problems (ENTRY-BUFFER, EXIT-BUFFER, and EXIT-AREA). The first two fields were resolved by making the linkage area a copybook and using a replacing to change the length but no one has any idea of how to define EXIT-AREA. Is there a calculation that is used to figure out the size? EXIT-AREA is defined in the help system as 'Exit area scratchpad used by the exit to maintain variables between calls to the exit program'..    Resolution: The EXIT-AREA is 256 bytes and the length is not set (though according to the IBM documentation it should be set to 256). This area is not used by SORT, it's to maintain variables between the calls to the E15 and E25 exits. Entry from IBM DFSORT docs below. Each time DFSORT calls the COBOL E15 or COBOL E35 user exit, it p

Problem: Release 5.0: Rebuilding         RELEASE\\FTP-UPRO.dll    Creating library RELEASE\\FTP-UPRO.lib and object RELEASE\\FTP-UPRO.exp FTP-UPRO.OBJ : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _FtpFindFirstFileA@16 RELEASE\\FTP-UPRO.dll : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals Rebuild complete with errors This failure is related to CALL WINAPI "FtpFindFirstFileA". Resolution: In that case it was helpful to change the WINAPI call-convention from 74 back to 66 to resolve this external symbol as well while linking a DLL. Old KB# 4439

Problem: Can't get to their data files on the Unix machine.  Is there some other way than using SAMBA to make the data on the Unix machine accessible to Windows and Net Express? Doing a NetX publish to Unix is not an option, either. Resolution: Unfortunately, there is no way aside from SAMBA to achieve this capability. If the Unix people can set things up so that Windows sees the Unix file system as a mapped drive, then Net Express will work with it. Old KB# 4411#netexpress#COBOL#AcuCobol#RMCOBOL#ServerExpress

Problem: This demo will show how you can use Windows Script Host (WSH) objects to create a shortcut from a COBOL application. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This demo shows how to create a shortcut from a COBOL application on Windows. DESCRIPTION ========= This demo shows how you can create a shortcut on the Start Menu. It uses an api to get the location of the Start Menu and then creates a shortcut in that directory. After running the demo you should find a Link in your StartMenu that opens the Micro Focus home page. SOURCE FILES ========= wshshortcut.cbl CreateShortCut.app ========================================================== Keywords: demonstration, sample, example, demo, CreateShortcut.zip, Shortcut demo.ex demo.ne Attachments: wshshortcut.zip Old KB# 4409

Problem: For batch applications using cbllink.exe on the command line, how are the "Application Complete" and "Click OK" pop-up windows suppressed? Resolution: When invoking cbllink.exe from the command line, omit the "/g" command line switch.  The "/g" switch marks the executable as a graphical application. When running unattended, batch-mode applications should not be marked as graphical, since this would require operator intervention for responding to pop-up windows. Old KB# 4426

Problem: A customer has a program that returns an XML status, but he cannot find out where these are documented. Resolution: The codes are documented in different places (depending on the product), but here they are for reference: Return Code Meaning > 0  After a successful READ action, the ordinal number of the record read is returned as the status code. 0 Success. The XML I/O action is performed without problem. -1 The XML I/O action is trying to access an XML stream that is not opened.   -2 This is an invalid XML I/O action. -3 Invalid mode is specified in the OPEN statement. -4 The XML stream cannot be opened. -5 The XML I/O action is attempting to access an internal DOM (Document Object Model) representation which is not present. DOM enables you to create and modify HTML pages and XML documents as full-fledged program objects. -6 An invalid KEY is specified in the XML I/O action.   -7 The end of the XML strea

Problem: Applications that perform very large SORT operations can often take quite some time to complete the process. However it is possible to inrease the performance of a SORT application by increasing the amount of memory used by SORT by conguring the SORTSPACE environment variable. Resolution: By default, SORT uses 1MB of memory when performing SORT operations. This amount can be increased however by setting the SORTSPACE environment variable to specify a greater amount of memory, for example SET SORTSPACE=256MB The more memory you define, the quicker the sort. We found that using the settings below produced the following results when performing a SORT operation against 1 million records: SORTSPACE        TIME TAKEN     2MB                         39s   1

Problem: In .NET WinForms how to show a form as a Modal Dialog Box? Resolution: Showing a form as a Modal Dialog Box by using the "ShowDialog" method. This will display the form as a Dialog Box and return a value that allows to determine if OK orCANCEL was pressed. For example:      set ls-result to ls-Form4::"ShowDialog"(self) The ShowDialog method takes the parent window as a parameter. Old KB# 4408

Problem: Release 4.0: While debugging within IDE and trying to change a value the Net Express IDE crashes completely with an unexpected error, s. attached snapshot. What to do to prevent this? Resolution: Probably, there are some Net Express common files not registered in the Windows registry correctly. Take a look here first: ..programs\\common files\\Micro Focus for Hex3.ocx, Hex5.ocx, Valueedit.ocx To register those files again via the Windows command line use regsvr32, i.e.: >regsvr32 Hex3.ocx and the problem gets rid off. Attachments: 2145552.JPG Old KB# 4406

Problem: When creating a new mapping for a Web Service from legacy COBOL code, you may find in doing so that the case of the legacy COBOL code is lost - for example all converted to lowercase. This may cause you a problem if you have a requirement for the case to be as in the original code, for example (lower-) CamelCase. Resolution: Specify the PRESERVECASE directive in your program program: $SET PRESERVECASE This will then ensure that the original case is preserved as required. Old KB# 4429

Problem: A customer using a build script found that intlevel(1) as a compiler directive gave the error * Invalid qualifier - intlevel(1) * 155-U 155 Illegal command line Resolution: On Server Express INTLEVEL can only be set to 2, 4 or 5, hence the error message. It's unlikely that this will cause a problem for any customer, as INTLEVEL set to 1 is for use with Micro Focus COBOL products on DOS and COBOL/2 on UNIX. Old KB# 4488

Problem: When using the Suggest Word option on a mispelled dataname in the procedure division, if the selected word is longer than the mispelled word and there is data in column 73 thru 80, then that data will be moved by the number of characters > the original word. Resolution: To fix this behavior simply display the Find/Replace window by pressing Ctrl-F and then check the option to stay within margins. Then the data in col 73 will not be moved. Old KB# 4446

Problem: When the "Remember this" logon option is set, compiling DB2 programs will no longer present the logon dialog. How to get the logon dialog to show up again? This would be necessary to use a different user id and password Resolution: The following can be found from the DB2 documentations: ________________________________________ Compiling Programs that use a Remote DB2 Server To compile a program that uses a remote DB2 server, you must first connect to that remote server. The DB2 ECM first attempts to connect to the database using the default values for the client workstation you logged on with. If the logon fails, the DB2 ECM will invoke the Micro Focus SQL Logon dialog in which you can then enter a logon ID and password for the database you are trying to compile your program against Automated Compiles Having the graphical logon dialog appear might not be acceptable for automating compiles from a background process such as a command f

Problem: Using "Suggest word" name that is larger or smaller than the original name, columns 73 and beyond are shifted right or left respectively. Changing a data name manually by using the keyboard, columns beyond 73 are not affected whether in insert or overtype mode, this should happen when using "SUGGEST WORD". Resolution: "SUGGEST WORD" is a function of find and replace that has setting outside the EDITOR settings. 1. Select the binoculars icon to move the cursor to the find window. 2. If "Replace" option is not visual select the last icon that looks like 3 staked arrow heads pointing up to expand the "Find Replace" window. 3. Select the "Between margins only button" to have "SUGGEST WORD" honor the margins Old KB# 4445

Problem: How to do Casting in Net Express .NET? In C# for example you can do - string x = (string)object; Resolution: The example program below shows casting in COBOL in .NET: (this is a demo of how to access an XML Config files)       $set sourceformat"variable"       program-id. ConfigReader.       environment division.       configuration section.       repository.            class cAppSettingsReader as "System.Configuration.AppSettingsReader"            class cString as "System.String"            class cInvalidOperationException as "System.InvalidOperationException"     &n

Problem: Users with restricted access (non-administrator and non-power users) cannot run Net Express 5.0 properly and create Cobol projects in Visual Studio 2005. When users with restricted access open an existing project in Net Express 5.0, here is the message they get: "Project file does not contain a version string. The project was not saved correctly after it was created." The following messages will be displayed in the Output Window of the Net Express IDE: ----- Generating system database Generating classes... 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\\NetExpress\\5.0\\SYSTEM.DAT The attempt to create a new system database failed The original database will be restored ----- When users with restricted access attempt to create a new project in the Net Express IDE, here is the message they will see: "General failu