Rocket® COBOL

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

Problem: Is there an example on how to use C$MemoryAllocate? Resolution: Yes. Please see attached. Attachments: build-data-items.cbl Old KB# 4693

Problem: What is ODBCtest, and how can I get it? Resolution: Microsoft ODBC Test is an ODBC-enabled application that you can use to test ODBC drivers and the ODBC Driver Manager. To get it, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for MDAC. You should find a page where you can download the latest version of this product, of which ODBCtest (ODBCTE32.EXE) is a part: Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC)      Old KB# 4651

Problem: Why doesn't licverifyall on Unixware work with my v8 license? Resolution: If you get the error message: "The platform in the license does not match the platform of the product." It is because with the version 10 release, we replaced the Unixware platform code (60) with the same code as is being used for SCO OpenServer 6 (67) and the version of licverifyall on the website reflects this. Use the version of licverifyall from our v9 release instead (attached).      Attachments: V9Unixware-licverifyall.zip Old KB# 4676

Problem: How do I highlight / select all the text in an edit box automatically? Resolution: Simple, use... Call SendMessage Using Win-Return edit2-H Em-SetSel 0 -1. See the attached example.      Attachments: 27236.zip Old KB# 4652

Problem: How can I show the cardinality of a table using ODBCtest? Resolution: Bring up ODBCtest and do a FULL CONNECT using the DSN of the Relatiivty catalog. Enter userID and password, if they exist. From the menu bar use Catalog->SQLStatistics and enter the TableName information, and set Unique=SQL_INDEX_ALL=1  (1.0). After the SQLStatistics displays succesfully, select Results->GetDataAll from the menu bar to get something like this: Get Data All: "TABLE_QUALIFIER", "TABLE_OWNER", "TABLE_NAME", "NON_UNIQUE", "INDEX_QUALIFIER", "INDEX_NAME", "TYPE", "SEQ_IN_INDEX", "COLUMN_NAME", "COLLATION", "CARDINALITY", "PAGES", "FILTER_CONDITION" plus the values. See also: RelClientTest      Old KB# 4650

Problem: How can I assign a file name when printing to Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer? Resolution: Define the name of the file to print in the SELECT statement as ACROBAT. In the Windows Runtime configuration file, (runcobol.cfg), define the new device: DEFINE-DEVICE  DEVICE=ACROBAT    PATH=" Adobe PDF". In the program, use the "P$SetDocumentName" and assign a name that is incremented each time you print. Disable the property for the printer that asks for the name of the file to print. The attached example uses a free PDF file creator : Cute PDF      Attachments: pdf.zip Old KB# 4685

Problem: How can I convert a 6 digit date to an 8 digit date? Resolution: Please see the attached Cobol program sample code. Attachments: cnvtdate.cbl Old KB# 4684

Problem: How can I print on Custom Forms without depending on a particular printer? Resolution: Each printer starts printing at a different physical position on the paper. This can cause issues when using a Custom Form and different printers. The program must take the physical offset  into account when you calculate the X/Y positions. There is a way for an RM/Cobol program to print to an X/Y Position and allow for this physical offset. First, use P$GetDeviceCapabilities to retrieve the physical offset value for the printer. Then use P$TextOut instead of the Cobol WRITE statement to print text. Attached is an example program. The P$GetDeviceCapabilities call returns values in pixels. You must convert those pixels to inches, if you prefer inches (you have a choice). The example program does the math in inches. There is another example program in the samples folder of the RM/Cobol Development system called PDEVICE.CBL. You can compile this and run it to see t

Problem: How do I fix a "duplicate presentation sequence" error? Resolution: Chances are this error is coming from very old version of Relativity, since this problem was fixed in version 4.2.  However, the cause may actually be in the catalog. If so, you will need to use the attached utility to fix it. If you are running an earlier version than 4.2 and still get this error after trying the utility, then you will need upgrade to the latest version of Relativity. To fix the catalog with the attached utility, follow these steps: 1. Close the datasource completely if it is open under the Relativity Designer or other ODBC access tool. 2. Double click on the reldbfix.exe icon. 3. Select the datasource containing the tables that generate the "Duplicate Presentation Sequence" error message. 4. Select "Repair sequence numbers" from the list of available actions. 5. Press the OK button. 6. Enter login information for the catalog.  &

Problem: How can I minimize record locking issues? Resolution: Please see the attached zip file for a procedure and supporting example program. Attachments: RecordLocking.zip Old KB# 4688

Problem: Is the Runtime CLUSTER aware? Resolution: RM/COBOL is not coded to any specific hardware platform or operating system. Therefore, there are no real optimizations for clustered or multiprocessor computing environments. Both RM/COBOL and InfoExpress are coded as single-threaded processes. Any parallelism that exists in the code would have to be extracted through the operating system and/or hardware of the machine. Even then, InfoExpress would be faster running on one server, with a sufficiently fast CPU and I/O subsystem, than using NFS. InfoExpress's strength is in it's ability to manage files that are being accessed by many concurrent users. RM/COBOL does not handle any of the locking process, but asks the operating system for a lock to occur and let's the operating system handle the actual locking of the file. Unfortunately, this means we are unable to optimize the locking mechanism as it is out of our control.      Old

Problem: How can I reindex the output from RECOVER2? Resolution: Please see the attached source code sample. Attachments: reindex.cbl Old KB# 4667

Problem: How do I resolve "Error invoking unauthorized copy... (Loc 508)" on Windows Vista, and above? Resolution: On Windows Vista, and above, the RM/COBOL runtime and compiler require that the Use Count service be installed and started in order to execute properly.  If the Use Count service is not present, the runtime will terminate with the following messages: Error invoking unauthorized copy of runtime. Windows function error (Loc 508). On Windows systems, this problem usually occurs when the RM/COBOL files are copied to the affected system from another machine, or, when executing the RM/COBOL Runtime from a mapped network drive without first performing a network installation. If a full install onto the Windows machine or a "network" install (using a network file server) is done, then the installation process properly installs and starts the Use Count service and there is no problem. Please see the Solution on running the Use Count Service on Vist

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 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 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: 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 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