Rocket® COBOL

Problem: Only, if the XP style (Visual style) is enabled on a Vista or XP windows: When Visual Studio is used to create a WinForms application, the painter shows the objects like push button in Visual XP style, e.g. with round edges. When running the application, the old standard style is used. Resolution: The Visual Style has to be enabled, e.g. by adding an invoke to "EnableVisualStyles" in the "main" method of the application:            set mainForm to Class-Main-Form::"New"()            invoke S-Windows-Forms-Application::"EnableVisualStyles"     *> added            invoke S-Windows-Forms-Application::"Run"(mainForm) Old KB# 1598

Problem: Which directives take precedence over which ones? Resolution: The Compiler processes the directives in the following order, and if a directive is specified more than once, the Compiler uses the last setting: 1. Directives set in project properties 2. System-wide directives file, i.e. COBOL.DIR 3. $SET statements in the source code 4. User directives file, i.e. USE(aFile.DIR) From the command line, the order is a follows: 1. System-wide directives file, i.e. COBOL.DIR 2. $SET statements in the source code 3. User directives file (i.e. USE"aFile.DIR") or inline directives If for example ANIM is defined in UserDefined.DIR and the command line is done as follows: COBOL Program1.CBL USE(UserDefined.DIR) NOANIM; The last specified directive will be used by the compiler, i.e. NOANIM, so no IDY file will be produced. If the order of USE and NOANIM are switched, then the ANIM in the directive will be used by the compiler. Note:

Problem: Columns 73 are grey while editing COBOL in Visual Studio. How can you control this behavour ? Resolution: This is controled by the project properties. In project properties there is an option for "SourceFormat" under the general tab. If "Fixed" is selected then the Visual Studio editor will gray out the text after column 72 in line with COBOL Syntax rules. If you switch this option to "variable" then the Editor (and compiler) removes this column 72 restriction. Old KB# 1550

Problem: When setting the switch A,  the display is working differently in that it sends some blank lines after the execution/animation. Without A the comman line immediately returns after the last Display. For Example with A there are some empty lines after the execution between the last dispay and when the command line returns: Display 1 Display 2 Display 4 /home/support/test Resolution: After the user exits animator, the shell command prompt appears about 15 lines below the remnants of the program's DISPLAY output. For customers who don't want the program's output to be upset by Animator in any way, recommend cross-session animation, like so: Log in as the user that will run the program and cd to the directory from where the program will be run, then type "cobanimsrv". In a separate window, log in as the same user and cd to the same directory, then execute the program normally, as t

Problem: is there a way to run mfsupportinfo without the box popping up at the end? Tied cobsw=-L1  still pops up Resolution: Type MFSUPPORTINFO /?  there will be 2 options listed. /R and /S are the two options listed: /R, will create a registry dump of HKLM/Software/Micro Focus in the resulting log file. /S, will cause the pop-up box not to be displayed. A third one, not listed is /L, which will redirect the log file to an alternate location. Old KB# 1541

Problem: When programs were moved from one machine to another, programs that had been producing standard record sequential files now created files with a hex(0A) at the end of each record, that is, line sequential files were produced by default. The version of Server Express was different, but this  did not seem relevant. Resolution: The compiler directive SEQUENTIAL determines the default type of sequential file produced. The default is RECORD (SEQUENTIAL"RECORD"), the four values possible are ADVANCING - RECORD SEQUENTIAL with LINE ADVANCING. ANSI - ANSI-conforming RECORD SEQUENTIAL. LINE - LINE SEQUENTIAL. RECORD - RECORD SEQUENTIAL (a standard SEQUENTIAL file). On the new machine, a cobol.dir line contained the phrase SEQUENTIAL"LINE" (though no one admitted to having entered that text). N.B. This directive can be set "invisibly" because of another directive being used: NORM or RM"ANSI" will set this to SEQUENTIAL"RECORD" RM will

Problem: Hyphens specified in the frist eight characters of a program-id are changed to zeros when the program is compiled. The documentation says this should only be the case if OSVS compiler directive is specified. Resolution: The documentation is incorrect. Hyphens in a program-id will always be changed to zeros. Old KB# 2008

Problem: On the MSMQ Receive is it possible to specify a timeout ? Resolution: The timeout is actually the 4th parameter to the receive call. To specify just the tmeout you can mark the other parameters as "ommited", The relevant code for this call is:-       *> Receive message (using defaults)                move low-values to v                move VT-ERROR to VARIANTARG-varType of v                invoke OleVariant "newWithData" using v                                          

Problem: Trying to animate a core file from a COBOL application sent from another location. Resolution:   When trying to animate a core file on a server different from where it was created requires an exact copy of the executable that generated the core as well as exact copies of any shared libraries and callable shared objects that were loaded at the time of the fault.  copies of any .int and .gnt and the associated .idy and source files for all of the above. The operating system must also be at exact same level. The Server Express product must also be identical. In all, it's usually easiest to animate a core file on the machine that the core file was produced on. Old KB# 2078

Problem: Writing large XML files using XML-I-O is time consuming. How can this be improved? The XML-File was declared as select myfile-frame assign "MyFile.XML"     organization XML                                 document-type "MyNamespace"                      file status XML-STAT.                XD myfile-content.        01 Support identified "Support".           02 rec  identified "Person".              03 Na

Problem: The customer was attempting to use the SORTSPACE by setting it as a compiler directive in the source code:   $set SORTSPACE=512M Sort space set to 1MB Received the folowing error: Set compiler directive SORTSPACE = 512M  "invalid, not allowed here COBCH0053S" Resolution: SORTSPACE is not a directive that can be set within a source program. It is an environment variable that needs to be set at the system level or by setting it within a projects properties for Application settings. Old KB# 1575

Problem: When running the script $COBDIR/bin/cobsje the following error is displayed bin/cobconvstrtest: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc .so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory Resolution: The error occurs because the script looks for the gcc version 5 libraries located in /usr/lib.  The solution is to download and install the correct version of gcc. Old KB# 2016

Problem: DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA is a clause which is used in the IDENTIFICATION DIVISION of a COBOL program which changes the thousand separator (comma) and decimal point (point), which are the default settings, to thousand separator (point) and decimal point (comma). Naturally, if using this clause, the program is compiled and ultimately run to use this format.  This is not always desirable and can be resolved at runtime when running the program.   Resolution: To change the format during execution the NLS compiler directive must be used. At compile time the checker must know which symbol is used for the decimal point in the program source code itself; for example, in PIC clauses. Then there is the value that is used at run time; for example,  the value which is ultimately displayed and written to data files. Normally these are the same. However, if you compile the program with the checker directive NLS then the runti

Problem: How can I store the .idy file, used for animation, in a seperate directory when compiling a program? Resolution: You can set the COBIDY compiler directive when compiling to store the .idy file in a separate directive.  The syntax is as follows:      COBIDY "path-name" The default is NOCOBIDY. If you do not specify path-name, the path-name in the COBIDY environment variable is used; if the environment variable contains multiple path-names the first of them is used. With NOCOBIDY, the .idy is written to the same path as the .int file. Old KB# 2001

Problem: Using Server Express, compiling a program with the DB2(IGNORE-NESTED) directive the following error appears: 413     EXEC SQL    414       OPEN myCursor    415     END-EXEC * 801-S************                                                    (   8)** **    External Compiler Module message **    DB0114 Statement only allowed in the PROCEDURE DIVISION. Resolution: The DB2(IGNORE-NESTED) directive uses the PROGRAM-ID specified in the program source. If this does not match the program source name, it can lead to such compiler er

Problem: I have an index file that I would like to know more information about it. Resolution: Rebuild  -i <file-name> Displays information about the input and output files, including record lengths, file type and key structure. If you only want to see the information and do not want to perform any other operation, use the -n option instead.   Old KB# 2090#netexpress#ServerExpress#COBOL#RMCOBOL#AcuCobol

Problem: A index file that works fine on windows gets a 9 error when running on a UNIX system. looking up the hex tables 9 means actually a corrupted file. Resolution: The problem is that on UNIX the idx file had another ending. Neukue.idx should really be neukue.dat.idx. 9 means a corrupt file there is a Compiler Direktive: IDXNAMETYPE The IDXNAMETYPE option specifies the format of the filename type for both the data file and, if present, the index file. Syntax: IDXNAMETYPE={0|1|2} Parameters: 0 Leave the filename of the data file the same. For the index file, discard any extension and add the extension .idx. 1 Leave the filename of the data file the same. For the index file, add the extension .idx.. 2 For the data file, add the extension .dat. For the index file, add the extension .idx. Properties: Default: 1 Comments: The name of the index file (if present) is derived from that of the data file. For example, if the data f

Problem: The documentation states the following: If you specify a file without an extension, the dynamic loader run-time support module adds the extension .so to the basename of the file, and searches the disk for the corresponding callable shared object file. If it cannot find the callable shared object the dynamic loader run-time support module adds the extension .int to the basename of the file, and searches the disk for the corresponding intermediate code file. If it cannot find the .int file, the dynamic loader run-time support module adds the extension .gnt to the basename of the file, and searches for the corresponding .gnt file. Resolution: This is actually incorrect and is the subject of an RPI (bug report). The default is .so, .gnt and then .int. Also, see tunable 'program_search_order' reference as this makes the above redundent. Old KB# 2060

Problem: A window containing a toolbar war pushed/used several times by dialog system. After a while the icons in the toolbar get black and a few cycles later the program was stopped by a runtime error. The program ran out of memory. Resolution: This problem was caused by a missing finalize for the object "buttonImageList" in the "OnDestroyed"-Section of the toolbar control program which was generated some years ago when creating the screen set. The object "buttonImageList" needs to be finalized like:           IF buttonImageList NOT = NULL              INVOKE buttonImageList "finalize"                                      RETUR

Problem: You can use code such as :-            MOVE '"' & ProgramID & z'ToolbarDestroyed"' TO MessageName            INVOKE EntryCallBack "new" USING MessageName                                   RETURNING aCallback            MOVE P2Ce-Destroyed TO i            INVOKE aWindow "SetEvent" USING i aCallback            INVOKE aCallback "finalize" RETURNING aCallback to detact when a window is destroyed in the class library. What event can you use to determinate is

Problem: When creating a new mapping for a Web Service from existing COBOL code, you may find in doing so that the case of the 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# 1620

Problem: Is it possible to rebuild C-ISAM file without IDX file ? Resolution: With Server Express 5.0  the following command can be used rebuild OLDECDOS -k:1 16:17 7d -o:ind -r:F140 Old KB# 2056#AcuCobol#RMCOBOL#ServerExpress#netexpress#COBOL

Problem: There is a problem with using CCITCP2.EXE after installing the APS10A40.EXE service pack for Application server to go with the ALL08N40 wrappack of Net Express. The installation of the APS service pack wil work correctly but after a reboot starting CCITCP2 as a service daemon will result in an error that the MFDS is not installed. Resolution: There are two versions of CCITCP2, one for Application Server and one for Enterprise Server. When creating the APS10A40 service pack the Enterprise Server version was accidently included instead of the correct version. This is a permanent restriction as no other websyncs will be delivered for Net Express 4.0. If it is necessary to use CCITCP2 for accessing Fileshare or Client Server binding then it would be necessary to save the version from the previous Application Server websync and then replace the version in APS10A40 with the saved version and use this one instead. This only applies to Applicatio

Problem: This KB is an add-on to the demonstration GetDirectory.zip available on MF Net Express samples page http://supportline.microfocus.com/examplesandutilities/nesamp.asp#Win32API " "This program demonstrates the use of Win32 API calls SHBrowseForFolder and SHGetPathFromIDList to display a dialog box that will allow the user to select a directory. " ____________________________________________________________ This amended demonstration allows to browse for FOLDERS and FILES from the Desktop and from the Current Folder ____________________________________________________________ Resolution: The add-ons are: This amended demonstration allows to browse for FOLDERS and FILES from the Desktop and from the Current Folder =============== The content of the structure BROWSEINFO used by the MS API SHBrowseForFolder MS API SHBrowseForFolder http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762115(VS.85).aspx MS BROWSEINFO structure http

Problem: Is there an easy way of telling whether we have Application Server, Enterprise Server or the Development System set up in the environment? Resolution: You can recognize the product from the second character of the PRN.  This is the number we use to identify the product versions for each platform. You can see the PRN by typing cob -V.  The possible values for the second character are : X for Server Express, 1 for Application Server B for Enterprise Server So, the PRN will look similar to these examples: PRN=RXCTH/AAM:9i.T4.40.01 - development product PRN=R1CTH/AAD:9i.T4.40.01 - application server PRN=RBCTH/AAC:9i.T4.40.01 - enterprise server You can also cat the $COBDIR/etc/cobver file for this information. Old KB# 2032