Rocket® COBOL

Problem: Release 4.0: When installing Net Express with .Net the COBOL.NET Project Package is not installed and the error 'Package Load Failure' appears. Error message: Package 'COBOL.NET Project Package' has failed to load properly ( GUID = {DC88F376-25DD-49C8-99D9-1FD8AE484362} ). Please contact package vendor for assistance. Would you like to diable loading this package in future? You may use 'devenv /resetskippings' to re-enable package loading. Application restart is recommended, due to possible environment corruption. Resolution: The problem was in this case that the virus scanner Zonealarm prevented the installation from succeeding. After disabling this the installation went through ok. Old KB# 4264

Problem: Net Express 4.0 How to set the font size of a COBOL Text Window that has the System menu disabled: Scenario - a character-based program that is built with the graphical link option (cbllink -G), but has disabled the System menu, that allows you to set the font and size, by way of a call to the Win32 API SetWindowLong function. When this program is deployed to other machines, the user won't be able to select the System menu to set the font size. Resolution: The solution here is to enable the System menu by commenting out the call to SetWindowLong and then rebuild and run the program. Now, you should be able to select the System menu (in the upper left) of the COBOL Text Window, select the "Font Size..." menu, and select a font and size. Then select the "Settings..." menu and check on "Save font size on exit". Stop the program and run the Windows regedit.exe utility. The font settings will have been sa

Problem: This shows how to use the MOUSE-OVER event when NLS is present. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ============ This program demonstrates the use of the mouse-over event in dialog system SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files     Description ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- Testnls.cbl         This program sets up the coblang environment variable before the call to dialog                           system    Testnls.gs          This is the screenset that shows the use of mouse-over. Copy Files: ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- testnls.cpb &nb

Problem: How to facilitate migrating DB2 tables to MS Excel Resolution: To migrate DB2 tables to MS Excel use the 'export' feature in the SQL wizard. To achieve this, do the following: - Create a new project within Net Express IDE and add your source file(s).   - Make sure XDB server is up and running.  If not, go to Tools | SQL for DB2 | Start Server menu option. - Select Tools | SQL for DB2 | SQL Wizard menu option from within the IDE window - Open up a table in your database - Select File| New | Export within the SQL Wizard window - Change the 'File name' of the 'Target File Information' on the 'Export' window to have the extension .csv - Select the 'Format' option on the 'Export' window as 'ASCII delimited' via the drop down menu. - In the 'Fld Delim' field of the 'Export window' type a comma (ie ",") - Click on the 'run' icon on the SQL Wiz

Problem: This example illustrates how to use dsdir.obj/.gnt in your COBOL Dialog System application. Buttons defined within the File menu are used to collect and return Resolution: INTRODUCTION ============ This example illustrates how to use dsdir.obj/.gnt in your COBOL Dialog System application. Buttons defined within the File menu are used to collect and return information to the main program. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files     Description ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- NewSet.cbl        Example program using File menu buttons. Open and Save to collect filenames                           for file processing. OPERATION: ========== When I started Dialog System to create a n

Problem: This demo shows how to use the paint method for a window created by Dialog System Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== Example of creating a window and trapping the paint method.    SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files           Description ---------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- PaintMe.cbl               PaintMe is just the trigger program that creates aPaintWindow.   MakePaintWin.cbl     Program makes a paint window. Although no local-storage is used, this                                  section is needed to allow EntryCallback

Problem: This example illustrates how to turn controls on tab pages off (disable-object). You cannot disable a tab page. You can, however, disable the controls on a tab page. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This example illustrates how to turn controls on tab pages off (disable-object). You cannot disable a tab page. You can, however, disable the controls on a tab page. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files           Description --------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- NewSet.cbl              Generated Dialog System program with additional initialization of a data block                                &n

Problem: Applications using the standard DOS character user interface use the DOS subsystem to display output text and data. In DOS the OEM character set is usually in place. Consequently some country specific chars will not be displayed correctly, especially the German Umlaute äöü. Resolution: You need to turn on the ANSI Input Mode. This can be achieved in the Application Environment of the Project Properties. The results of DISPLAY will then appear correctly in the Application Output Window of Net Express. If the application is to bel be executed in a runtime only environment, the appropriate Runtime Tunable can be set. The option ANSI_INPUT_MODE must be set to TRUE. The Tunables are defined in a Runtime Configuration File. An environment variable must be created to specify the configuration:   SET COBCONFIG_=d:\\path\\rtsconfig.cfg This method must be used in a Command Prompt before executing a RUNW. Old KB# 4

Problem: A customer in Brazil had a Character Dialog screen set with a field that converted automatically to upper case. However the characters 'áéíóú' were converted to 'áéí??' (the last two characters are box-drawing ones that do not display correctly with this software). Why did this happen? Resolution: The Windows API used by the runtime system in CBL_TOUPPER uses the Windows (ANSI) character set rather than OEM by default. In order to get the required conversion the customer needs to call PC_WIN_SET_CHARSET to get an OEM conversion. Details of this API are in the Net Express documentation.   Old KB# 4227

Problem: This demo shows how to parse XML Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This example demonstrates the use of the Microsoft XML classes for manipulating Extensible Markup Language (XML) files. This example will show how to use the methods within these OLE classes to parse an XML document into its various components. The file sample.xml contains the document used in this example. The document describes a list of musical compact discs divided into title, artist, tracks, price and track information. This program will extract tag information from the XML object and will display the parsed data. It will also call the subprogram GetCDData using the XML object as a parameter and this program will further parse the document based on the values of certain tags. This example also demonstrates the use of recursion within COBOL as the XML object is in a tree structure and the subprogram to extract data calls itself until the tree data is exhausted. SOURCE F

Problem: This demo is a simple application which shows Net Express working with XML Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This example demonstrates the use of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) within a Net Express Web application. XML code can be output via EXEC HTML language extensions provided by Net Express. Extensible Style Language (XSL) documents can also be used to translate the XML into HTML for output. In this example a simple HTML input form will be displayed allowing the user to select one of three methods in which the XML page should be output. It can be displayed without a style sheet (only the bare XML code will be displayed) or with one of the two style sheets provided. It uses embedded SQL to access the Net Express sample database "NetExpress Sample1" which will be stored in the NetExpress\\base\\ demo\\smpldata\\access directory as Demo.mdb. It accesses the table "Staff" within this data source. It uses the data wit

Problem: This demo shows how to create a splash screen window for your Dialog System application. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This demo shows how to create a splash screen window for your Dialog System application. A 16-color bitmap was used on a dialog box as the splash screen. The bitmap is stored in a resource dll (bmp.dll). See the Dialog System Help, Contents tab, "Bitmaps, Icons and Mouse Pointers", "Adding Your Own Bitmaps" section to see how to do this. 256-color bitmaps cannot be placed within a dll and used by Dialog System. However, you can load the bitmap into Microsoft Paint and do a "Save As", where you can change the "Save as type" to 16-color bitmap. Dialog System is able to use the bitmap by way of the resource dll through the use of a bitmap/icon sidefile. This is a text file that you can create and specify in the Dialog System Options menu, Resource files...,Icon/Bitmap file. Be sure not to speci

Problem: This demo shows how to do an "ITEM-UNSELECTED" in a Dialog System list box Resolution: How to do an "ITEM-UNSELECTED" for DS list box? Here's also a simple project to illustrate this alternative. Note that the Cobol program doesn't actually do anything than to load the screenset and stop only when the user clicks on the 'X' button. There are 2 events that relate specifically to List Box: 1. ITEM-SELECTED, invoked upon a mouse click on list box item 2. ITEM-ACCEPTED, invoked upon a mouse double click on list box item (or enter key pressed) The ITEM-SELECTED event can be defined to take actions when the user clicked on a list box item. This will also result to have that item highlighted or selected. If the user clicked on the same item which is already selected, it doesn't do anything. The item remains selected, and there is no event to be invoked. That is, the ITEM-SELECTED event doesn't

Problem: NLS DS demonstration Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This example program demonstrates how to use the National Language Support (NLS) features provided by Net Express and Dialog System. This allows you to create Dialog System screenset files whose text fields will automatically be converted at run-time between 2 or more different languages, i.e., English, French, Spanish, etc. This is done by creating the screenset using a default language, such as English, and then saving all the screenset text to a NLS file where it can then be translated into other languages. The NLS files are standard ASCII text files that store each different text string within the screenset as a separately numbered line with the text string stored between quotes. Example: $set 1 1      "DS NLS Support"              *> Text for Window title. 2 &nbs

Problem: This demo shows how to swap the focus from a Dialog System window to a COBOL text window. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This demo shows how to swap the focus from a Dialog System window to the COBOL text window.  This is important when you have an application which is made up from a mixture of GUI and character forms. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files     Description ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- TEST1.CBL         Main program which calls Dialog System. SPROG1.CBL      Example sub-program 1. SPROG2.CBL      Example sub-program 2. TEST1.GS           Dialog System screenset. Copy Files: ----------------     ------------------------------

Problem: Scenario: I need to create a Cobol based DLL, which can be called from Visual Basic 6 as a function.  I have found vb-call-cobol.zip demo program in the Net Express Samples & Utilities section of the Micro Focus SupportLine.  I am using that approach.  I set up my VB program and compiled the Cobol module in Net Express.  However, when I run VB, I'm getting run time error 53 - 'ccsvallt not found' ('ccsvallt.dll is my DLL). Resolution: Error 53 is reported in Visual Basic when it can't load the DLL.  The most likely cause is that a Win32 DLL is being used rather than via OLE. What's likely happening is that VB found the COBOL DLL but its failing to load because it cannot find the runtime. You can try the following:- -  Use the Build Settings in the IDE (under the 'Project' menu) to set the Dynamic Option on the 'link' tab.  

Problem: The sample demonstrates how to create a Dialog System screenset which uses the Themed Controls of the XP Visual Style. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ============ This application demonstrates a method of using the Visual Style (XP-Style) controls in a Dialog System Application. REQUIREMENTS: ============= The APP requires Net Express 4.0 or a higher version. The demo should run on all Win 32 systems but will show the visual style only on Windows XP and later systems, where the visual style layout is activated. The Visual Style requires an EXE build of the start program, because the resource file must be linked in. I.e. it will not show the visual style in an INT or GNT build. OPERATION: ======== The Visual Style: -------------------- The same base name has to be used for the .RC resource file and for the EXE. The resource file can be edited using a text editor like notepad. Refer to the manifest file within the resource file. The NoBorder

Problem: This application demonstrates a method of using both Dialog System GUI screensets and character based console screens within the same application. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This application demonstrates a method of using both Dialog System GUI screensets and character based console screens within the same application. The program PROG1.EXE is the main executable which is linked as a character based application. (Look in IDE/Project/Build Settings/Link/ General). The program SHOWCONSOLE is a subprogram whose .OBJ file is linked into both PROG1.EXE and PROG2.DLL. It contains the following callable entry points:       - "hideconsole": hide the console window which is created when PROG1.EXE is started.          Everytime this entry point is called the window will be hidden.       - "showconsole": make the console windo

Problem: This Dialog System example illustrates how to get a button press returned to the COBOL program. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ============ This Dialog System example illustrates how to get a button press returned to the COBOL program. SOURCE FILES: ============= Program Files       Description -----------------      ----------------------------------------------------------- NewSet.cbl           Modified generated COBOL program that processes buttons in a dialog. Copy Files: ======= Newset.cpb          Generated copy book for screenset. OPERATION: ========== To learn how this example was created edit NewSet.gs. You may have to open the file with Dialog System in order to do this. Click Screenset (menu), Data block... (button). Two data items were added. MY-OK-BUTTON&nbs

Problem: This demo shows how to Get, Set and Redraw a Dialog System window using Win APIs Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This sample demonstrates how to change the attributes of a Dialog System dialog box...in this case, to make the dialog box sizeable by changing the window style. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files     Description ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- sizedlg.cbl          Main program source file. sc.cbl                 Subprogram that changes the attributes of the window passed to it. Copy Files: ----------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- ds-cntrl.mf         Dialog System control block. si

Problem: Multiple Line Text in Dialog System Push Buttons using Windows Styles. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== Multiple Line Text in Dialog System Push Buttions using Windows Styles. By default Dialog System truncated text on a Button when it is larger than the button size. This demo shows how to use Windows API calls in order to make the text go over multiple lines. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files            Description ---------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- demo.cbl           setbuttonstyles.cbl Copy Files: ---------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- thescreenset.cpb minwin.cpy winbase.cpy winclass.cpy winerror.cpy wingdi.cpy winnls.cpy wintypes.cpy winuser.cpy DS Scree

Problem: How do I resolve an error compiling my SQL application? How do I resolve an error compiling my DB2 application? How do I resolve an error compiling my XDB application? Compiling with Cobsql returns CSQL-F-016: Unix error Compiling with Cobsql returns CSQL-F-015: Dos error Compiling with Cobsql returns CSQL-F-014: Windows error Note that this article applies to both Net Express and Server Express. Resolution: Note that this article applies to both Net Express and Server Express. If using either Cobsql or compiling with the DB2 directive -- i.e. to use the DB2 ECM -- and your application doesn't compile, in order to isolate whether the problem lies with either Micro Focus software or the RDBMS precompiler, we suggest that you precompile the application using the Database vendors' command-line precompiler, i.e.     * IBM DB2 : db2 prep ...     * Oracle : procob ...     * Infor

Problem: Error codes delivered by CBL_ routines: Byte-stream File Routines: CBL_CLOSE_FILE, CBL_CREATE_FILE, CBL_FLUSH_FILE, CBL_FREE_RECORD_LOCK, CBL_GET_RECORD_LOCK, CBL_OPEN_FILE, CBL_READ_FILE, CBL_TEST_RECORD_LOCK, CBL_WRITE_FILE File and Filename Routines: CBL_CHANGE_DIR, CBL_CHECK_FILE_EXIST, CBL_COPY_FILE, CBL_CREATE_DIR, CBL_DELETE_DIR, CBL_DELETE_FILE, CBL_DIR_SCAN_BEGIN, CBL_DIR_SCAN_END, CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ,  CBL_GET_CURRENT_DIR, CBL_JOIN_FILENAME, CBL_RENAME_FILE, CBL_SPLIT_FILENAME, PC_FIND_DRIVES, PC_READ_DRIVE, PC_SET_DRIVE ... Resolution: Customers sometime ask SupportLine, what does this "14-thousand-somewhat"-RETURN-CODE or status mean, which is delivered by a CBL_Routine. This knowledge base article should be found by the Google search when a status like "14657" is entered. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For all these routines, if the routine is successful

Problem: Version 4.0 If you have installed the Net Express 4.0 All Websync WrapPack 4.0.007 (all07n40.exe) and try to view an EBCDIC data file in the Data File Editor, you may not be able to switch from ANSI to EBCDIC to view EBCDIC data. This will occur if you have the "Find Text" toolbar open. This toolbar is visible if you choose the "Search" and "Find Text" menus when a source file is open in the editor. Resolution: Changes to the Text Find and Replace have caused the problem in all07n40. The workaround is to right-click on the Text Find toolbar and choose Hide from the popup menu before you open an EBCDIC file in the Data File Editor. The problem should be fixed in all fixpack releases and versions of Net Express after this fixpack. Old KB# 4257

Problem: This program demonstrates how to use the Windows 32-bit Network API functions to obtain a list of available network resources and their associated parameters. It also demonstrates how to map to a network drive and printer from within COBOL. Resolution: INTRODUCTION ========== This program demonstrates how to use the Windows 32-bit Network API functions to obtain a list of available network resources and their associated parameters. It also demonstrates how to map to a network drive and printer from within COBOL. SOURCE FILES: ========== Program Files         Description -------------------     ----------------------------------------------------------- ENUMNET.CBL       Program that obtains information about all currently connected network drives. MAPNET.CBL          Program that will map a l