Rocket® COBOL

Problem: There is an own callable file handler available and have built it as a DLL. Trying to work out how to get a COBOL program to use it? Resolution: If there is a callable file handler available, the need to do is to recompile the programs with the CALLFH directive:     CALLFH (myhandler) It is as simple as that. By default, programs are compiled with CALLFH (EXTFH).  So any I/O sentences are compiled to calls to "EXTFH".  EXTFH is well documented in the help as it can be called explicitly within your programs. Considering to compile the programs with CALLFH (myhandler), then "myhandler" has to be able to resolve the same type of calls that EXTFH is able to resolve, that is why the EXTFH documentation can be very useful. Another example of an alternative file handler is Fileshare.  To be able to use Fileshare (that allows to access files in other platforms in the network -please check the do

Problem: Release 4.0: COBCH0912S Internal error - Dictionary invalid r/w 00000000 Inform Technical Support when compiling program with XML PARSE statement. Resolution: The specific problem description is: Compiling XML PARSE syntax with the directive VSC2 resulted in the error "COBCH0912S Internal error - Dictinary invalid r/w". This issue has been fixed with the Net Express 4.0 all06n40.exe WrapPack (compiler fixpack version 4.0.008) Old KB# 4327

Problem: I have copied CBLCORED.EXE  to the application directory on the customer's machine, and have then used a command line to run CBLCORED.    I select "Enabled" but the CBLCORE dump itself is NOT created anywhere on the hard drive when the program fails.    I have also tried using the Net Express CBLCORE functionality, by setting error debugging to "Core Dump" in the "Animate" settings, but the CBLCORE file is still not created. Why is this? Resolution: This wasn't working because the application hadn't been compiled and linked for debugging.   Linking the application using -BFD (cbllink -BFD myapp) builds a static exe with the animation functionality built in.  If you run this, you will find that the coredump is created when the application fails. Old KB# 4284

Problem: This program demonstrates how to create a Windows 32-bit .DLL from a COBOL program which can be called by a Microsoft Visual C program. Resolution: The .DLL will be loaded by the C executable CALLER.EXE. The entry points will be made public and then GETSTR1 will be called to get the first string to display and GETSTR2 will be called to get the second string to display. Both of these strings will then be output in the Window which is created and maintained by CALLER.EXE. This program was tested using Microsoft Visual C/C V6.0. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files Description ---------------------  --------------------------------------------------------- WINDLL.CBL           Program which is built into WINDLL.DLL and is called by CALLER.EXE WINDLL.DEF          Definitions file created by the Net Express build. CALLER.C &

Problem: How do you set "Duplex Printing"? (printing on both sides of a page requires optional printer feature) Resolution: This will only work for a printer that acutally can print on 2 sides Manual Duplexing does not work with this method Using PC_PRINTER_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES. The PCPDP example program demonstrates how to use the PC_PRINTER_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES routine. The routine requires two parameters, "flags" and "properties".            call 'PC_PRINTER_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES'                using by value     flags                      by reference properties                returnin

Problem: This pertains to Net Express 5.0 with Visual Studio .NET 2005: Using Open File and Save File dialog boxes in .NET. The 2 WinForms classes used to create dialog boxes for Open and Save are System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog and System.Windows.Forms.SaveFileDialog. For more details about the properties and methods of these classes, do an index search through the Visual Studio 2005 Help or go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library where you can search the classes by their full names (namespace and class). Resolution: To use an Open File dialog box, double-click OpenFileDialog from the Dialogs section of the Toolbox in the Visual Studio .NET 2005 IDE. An icon of the object will not appear on your form, but you will see it below the form on the Form Design window. Click on it to see and set it's properties  in the Properties window. The OpenFileDialog object has a ShowDialog method which makes it appear to the user. If a single file is c

Problem: Product:    Net Express 4.0 Running a java program and getting a 103 error message that the library file is not found. Resolution: Check the environment is setup for Java and COBOL: 1)  There is a need to have Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.3.x (or higher) installed.  It is recommended to use the JDK supplied with your J2EE application server. Make sure that the PATH environment variable points to the bin directory of the correct JDK. To set the PATH using a command such as: set Path=jdk-installation\\bin;%path% The Java Development Kit (JDK) is required for compiling Java. The JDK is downloadable from the Sun Web site or use any Java IDE which is based on either the Sun or Microsoft Java run-time environments. After installing the JDK, to put the tools.jar file for the JDK on the classpath, using a command similar to: set CLASSPATH=jdk-install-directory\\lib\\tools.jar 2)  To check the fo

Problem: To open a new, empty email form with a filled out email address. From a command prompt and using: start mailto:firstname.lastname@domain.com How can this be done from Dialog System? Resolution: To achieve the same from within Net Express with     call "system" using z"start mailto:firstname.lastname@domain.com" From Dialog System, to use a CALLOUT or a RETC and call the "system" from COBOL. It was tested successfully on Windows XP Professional where Microsoft's Outlook 10 is installed. Hint: The CALL to "system" opens a Command prompt, which cannot be closed without ending the program. Old KB# 4325

Problem: Release 4.0: Runtime DLL 'CBLRTSS', version 4.0, entry point CBL_CTF_TRACER_GET not recorded in registry, not found or incompatible with requirements of dynamically bound COBOL program. Dynamic binding of RTS requires: Any Runtime DLL, at least Version 4.0 Resolution: There is a mismatch between the update version of the compiler and the update version of the application server (runtime). Please update the runtime to the same level as the development environment. recent: all08n40.exe for Development environment / aps10a40 for Application Server. Old KB# 4304

Problem: When building web pages the resulting page on the client side has Net Express comments included which bloats the html size.  These comments look like <!--/*MF NetExpress embedded COBOL begin*/>. Resolution: In eht02n40 of the all08n40 Net Express 4.0 WrapPack, a new preprocessor flag (NOCGICOMMENT) has been added to optionally ignore the MF comments being inserted into the HTML sources at runtime. This means that pages output by the COBOL CGI program will not include the comments (you can check by viewing the html source from a browser), but the source in the project will have them. Below is a description of the flag: CGICOMMENT Causes the preprocessor to insert Micro Focus specific comments into the output HTML codes. Syntax: >>-.---.-.----.--CGICOMMENT----------------><     -/- -NO- Parameters: None Properties: Default: CGICOMMENT   Phase: Syntax check   $SE

Problem: The attached readme includes changes since Net Express 5.0 went GA. Resolution: Attachments: READN-50.ZIP Old KB# 4296

Problem: Release 4.0 above: Installation - Install NetExpress on Microsoft Terminal Server and/or Citrix Resolution: To use Netexpress on a Terminal Server or with Citrix you have to ensure the following things: This file system.dat in ..\\documents and settings\\all users\\application data\\micro focus\\netexpress\\4.0 must have normal user rights. The user needs to have read access to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. They also need write access over HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Micro Focus for Net Express. Old KB# 4275

Problem: This demo shows how you can use a HTML Link (A HREF) to call a COBOL CGI passing parameters Resolution: ========================================================== Keywords: demonstration, sample, example, demo, web programming, links.zip demo.ex demo.ne demo.se Attachments: links.zip Old KB# 4205

Problem: It may happen that an ISAM file is corrupted and needs to be rebuilt, but when the rebuild utility runs not all records are returned. Resolution: This could be caused by a physical corruption  in the data (.dat) portion of the file. A "rebuild MyFile.dat" only builds a new IDX file and keeps the DAT file unchanged. Use the rebuild with InFile and OutFile and the option /d to rebuild a corrupted data file: REBUILD.EXE Infile,Outfile /d Old KB# 4247#netexpress#ServerExpress#RMCOBOL#AcuCobol#COBOL

Problem: The Dialog System "Color Selection" dialog box for setting colors of controls has a very limited selection of colors to choose from. To get a more varied selection of color choices, you can use the Micro Focus GUI Class Library. This means that you will have to add extra Dialog code for each control that you want to color by way of the class library. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== The Dialog System "Color Selection" dialog box for setting colors of controls has a very limited selection of colors to choose from. To get a more varied selection of color choices, you will have to make use of the Micro Focus GUI Class Library. This means that you will have to add extra Dialog code for each control that you want to color by way of the class library. To enable use of the class library from within Dialog System, add the following code to the SCREENSET-INITIALIZED event in Screenset...Global Dialog: CLEAR-CALLOUT-PARAMETERS $NUL

Problem: Supplying an argument or parameter to MFNETX /DEBUGPROJ (e.g. MFNETX /DEBUGPROJ:projectname arg) fails with an error that it cannot find the project. Resolution: Since spacey project names are allowed in Net Express, the MFNETX /DEBUGPROJ command treats the characters following the project name and space as part of the project name. To avoid this to happen, you simply need to quote the project name signifying that the following the closing quote is an argument, i.e. MFNETX /DEBUGPROJ:"projectname" arg Old KB# 4255

Problem: This demo shows how to prevent users from using the mouse right-click to go "back" to previous page for example Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== How to prevent users from using the mouse right-click to go "back" to previous page for example? This has to be done with JavaScript. Please bear in mind that this is NOT fool-proof! ****** This script is *NOT* fool-proof. People can disable JavaScript support in their browser, use a browser which doesn't support JavaScript, or use a browser to link directly to the image that you want to protect. Also the pages and images are normally stored in the user's browser cache (for viewing later whilst offline) - with a little bit of work, the thief could find your image in their cache. It also doesn't stop users accessing the source of your page from the toolbar menus (View | Page Source). You could attempt to load your page into a window without toolbars - but again this isn&#39

Problem: In the Net EXpress IDE you may have accidently made the toolbar disappear - how can you make it reappear? Resolution: Select View >  Dockable Windows and then check the toolbar option. It will reappear as 'floating' - but then you can dock it if required. Old KB# 4211

Problem: This demo shows you how can you place a bitmap as a background on your windows. This demo uses bitmaps of 16 colours, 256 colours and 24 bits colours. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This demo shows you how can you place a bitmap as a background on your windows. This demo uses bitmaps of 16 colours, 256 colours and 24 bits colours. SOURCE FILES: ========= Program Files             Description ---------------------      ----------------------------------------------------------- bitmapdemo.cbl         Simple COBOL program that loads bitmapdemo.gs Copy Files: ---------------------      ----------------------------------------------------------- bitmapdemo.cpb        copy file generated with Dialog System. Resource Files: ----------

Problem: This demo shows how to create icons in a Dialog System Pulldown-Menu Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This Demo shows you how to create Icon's in a Dialog System Pulldown-Menu. In Dialog System we have no functionality for this. In this Demo we can show how you can do this via WinApi system calls. kind Regards Andre Beuth & Dieter Petz SOURCE FILES =========   Program Files        Description ------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- Menueitem.cbl      Main Program Menueitem.gs       Dialog System Screenset *.bmp                   Bitmaps used in the Pull-down-Menue Copy Files ------------------     -------------------------------

Problem: The sample is used to demonstrate how create transparent dialog boxes in Dialog System Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== The project file Layered.APP is used to demonstrate how create transparent Dialog Boxes in Dialog System. To do this the demo uses the Layered Window API that was introduced in Windows 2000. RESTRICTIONS ========= Support for Layered Windows was added in introduced in Windows 2000. Transparent windows using this technique will therefore work only on 2000/ME/XP/2003. It will not work on Win9x systems. ========================================================== Keywords: demonstration, sample, example, demo, Dialog System, layered.zip demo.ex demo.ne Attachments: Layered.zip Old KB# 4231

Problem: Release 4.0: How can I get more  information about run time error codes used in Net Express? Resolution: Take a look at th following: Open the Net Express IDE -> Help -> Help Topics -> Index -> enter: 'RTS' and you should see this entry:  'error messages' After clicking you get back a sorted list by numbers ascending of all rts error codes used in this run time system. Old KB# 4266

Problem: Since applying SP2 to Windows XP our CGI programs run fine but they cannot be debugged/animated within Net Express. Resolution: We suggest you try the following: 1)  Log on to Microsoft's Windows Update and ensure your installation of XP is fully updated. 2) Disable the XP's internal Firewall. 3) Execute CBLCORED -I from within a Net Express Command Prompt.  This CBLCORED option implements a number of security tweaks that Microsoft recommend.  It is only active for the duration of the user being logged on to the machine i.e. a reboot or logging of the XP box will require the command to be executed again. 4) Enable CGI debugging from within IIS 5.5. Please contact Micro Focus SupportLine if you still have problems. Old KB# 4260

Problem: The following question was received from a customer: On the mainframe, we add 4 bytes to the sorting position for variable length sequential files.  It looks like we should NOT do this when we are sorting Microfocus variable length sequential files.  Can you confirm that this is the case? Resolution: Yes, this is the case. The file characteristics are deduced from the file itself for variable length and indexed files, so there is no need to add the 4 extra bytes. Old KB# 4259#RMCOBOL#netexpress#AcuCobol#COBOL#ServerExpress

Problem: This demo shows how you can create a Windows control panel application using Net Express and Dialog System. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This demo shows how you can create a Windows control panel application using  Net Express. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files          Description --------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- CPIApplet.cbl controlpanel.cbl Copy Files: --------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- commdlg.cpy mfres.cpy minwin.cpy winbase.cpy winclass.cpy winerror.cpy wingdi.cpy winnls.cpy wintypes.cpy winuser.cpy controlpanel.cpb mfres.h DS Screenset: --------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- controlpanel.gs Resource Files: ----