Rocket® COBOL

Problem: When compiling a program using IDXFORMAT"8" in the cobol.dir file, can this program still access existing files with a different IDXFORMAT type? Resolution: Yes, the file handler knows the format of existing files when it opens them and reads the header information so it is possible to create new files as IDXFORMAT"8" while still being able to open existing IDXFORMAT"3" files. for example. Old KB# 1592#COBOL#ServerExpress#AcuCobol#netexpress#RMCOBOL

Problem: If Net Express 4.0 and Net Express 5.0 are installed on the same computer is there the capability of using either 4.0 or 5.0 of Net Express.   The customer develops and distributes runtime executables, that need to run with Application Server 4.0 but would also like to use 5.0 for the clients that have upgraded to 5.0 Will the executable developed with 5.0 work with Application Server 4.0? When Net Express is opened for a compile, Net Express 5.0 comes up.   Resolution: It is possible to have both Net Express 4.0 and Net Express 5.0 installed on the same computer without a problem as long as the PATH, COBDIR etc., environment variables are set so that the desired compiler folder will appear first within the environment variables folder list. If a shortcut is created on the desktop which will point to either the BIN folder of Net Express 4.0 or 5.0 as desired then it should start the correct version. These are all comp

Problem: There are multiple servers on the network which contain COBOL data files. The COBOL applications and Application Server are also in a directory on the same server as the data files. CCITCP2 and Fileshare are both run as Windows Services on the servers containing the data and applications. The applications are started by logging into a Citrix server and clicking on a shortcut which will launch one of the COBOL applications on the data system. Resolution: Some people have a misconception of how a Citrix Server actually works.  It is basically just a computer to which multiple users can log on to and run applications. It is a misconception that if an application is started on Citrix which physically resides on another computer then the application will be run on that computer. This is false. The application will be run in a partition on the Citrix Server computer and the computer on which the application resides will just be used a

Problem: ccitcp2 is not installed when one opts to install Enterprise Server during the Server Express Install procedure. Resolution: If one installs Application Server or a Server Express development system without accepting the Enterprise Server (ES) option, ccitcp2 is installed. If one responds 'yes' to installing ES or installs a stand-alone ES, ccitcp2 is replaced with a script that runs mfds. Old KB# 1994

Problem: Is there a way to use a reserved COBOL word as a paragraph name? Resolution: Yes.  Include the reserved word in the REMOVE list. Use the compiler directive REMOVE"<reserved-word>".  For example, to use a paragraph name using the reserved word "LEFT-JUSTIFY", use the following compiler directive:  REMOVE"LEFT-JUSTIFY", then name the paragraph "LEFT-JUSTIFY" in the source code. Old KB# 1558

Problem: Compiler error on a variable  INTERFACE-ID defined in wokring storage. This has happened after a compiler upgrade to the latest version of the compiler. Resolution: INTERFACE-ID was added as a reserved word when support for the ISO2002 standard was introduced. You can use the REMOVE directive in order to let your program compile or run. For example :-       $SET REMOVE"INTERFACE-ID"        working-storage section.        01 INTERFACE-ID     PIC X(50).        procedure division.        start-section.            move "hello" to INTERFACE-ID.            stop run. Old KB# 2070

Problem: Net Express IDE -> Animate -> Start Animating... Der Animator versucht ein Programm zu laden, auch wenn es bereits aus dem Projekt entfernt wurde. Wie kann erreicht werden, dass das korrekte Programm animiert wird? Resolution: Der gewuenschte Startort zum Animieren wird in der Net Express IDE permanent hier bestimmt: Animate -> Settings -> General -> Start Animating at: Das bedeutet, dass nach dem Entfernen von ProgrammA aus dem linken Projektfenster der Eintrag ProgrammA zum Starten des Animators zunaechst bestehen bleibt, weil dieser vorher der festgelegte Ort des Startens des Animators war. Die unter Animate -> Start Animating... gemachten aenderungen sind temporaer und eine Warnung weist darauf hin, dass aenderungen an dieser Stelle nicht ins Projektfile einfliessen. Old KB# 1601

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: Background information: Indexed files in Micro Focus COBOL can have different formats or organizations.  An indexed file's format is decided at the time the file is created, under the control of the IDXFORMAT compiler directive. The default IDXFORMAT value is "1", meaning "C-ISAM", whereas the value "4" means, "an optimized form of Micro Focus indexed file format".  Here is a table summarizing common formats: 1   C-ISAM format. 3   Micro Focus indexed file format. 4   An optimized form of Micro Focus indexed file format, for fast duplicate key handling. 8   Large indexed. Once a file is created with a certain format, it retains that format for life (unless it is converted using the "rebuild" command).  For more information, look in the main index of the Server Express documentation, under the keyword "IDXFORMAT", and check each of the references there. In this

Problem: Release: 5.0 .NET After passing a TreeView object reference to my own (not Painter created) class, there is no Intellisense available in this class which shows the methods for a TreeView. Only 4 standard methods like "equal" are offered. Resolution: A reference to Visual Studio 2005 System.Windows.Forms is required in the references of the project of the own class. The Intellisense is available for the notation SET Myobj :: "MyMethod"( ... ) and also for the Micro Focus extended notation INVOKE MyObj::"MyMethod" ... but there is no Intellisense, when the invoke is written in standard notation as INVOKE MyObj "MyMethod" using ... returning Old KB# 1551

Problem: In the unlikely scenario of accidentally deleting or corrupting the NetExpress registry settings, there is now a very easy way of resetting them back to their original state. Resolution: Go the the Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > select NetExpress > Change > select the Repair option.  In so doing this will repair any deleted or damaged NetExpress registry settings. Old KB# 1603

Problem: response file ( containis list of .OBJ to static link in .EXE |DLL with CBLLINK see .BAT file pasted below Resolution: .BAT file showing the use of a response file containing a list of .OBJ to be static linked in the .EXE or DLL to be generated The interesting command in shell below is: cbllink -v -d  -OaDll.dll @Cbllink.fil         see that the CBLLINK command uses here the file Cbllink.fil  which contains a list of .OBJ: TOclP1.obj TOclP2.obj TOclP3.obj TOclP4.obj TOclP5.obj ========================= @echo off set ProgModelete=P1 del TOclP*.* rem ................................................................................. :CopyFromP1 copy %ProgModelete%.cbl TOclP1.cbl copy %ProgModelete%.cbl TOclP2.cbl copy %ProgModelete%.cbl TOclP3.cbl copy %ProgModelete%.cbl TOclP4.cbl copy %ProgModelete%.cbl TOclP5.cbl :Compil cobol TOclP1.cbl,TOclP1.obj; cob

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: Dialog System - How are multiple lines of data items highlighted in a List Box control? Resolution: Set the Selection Type to control how the list items are selected at run time. Select Single so that only a single list item can be selected in the list box. Select Multiple so that more than one item can be selected in the list box. The user must click the mouse over each item in turn. Select Extended so that more than one item can be selected in the list box. The user must click the mouse and drag it over the items to be selected. The GET-LIST-ITEM-STATE function can then be used to determine which items have been selected. Old KB# 1577

Problem: Will previous versions of Visual Studio be overwritten by the NetExpress 5.0 installation? Resolution: No.  The Micro Focus NetExpress 5.0 installation will detect and preserve installed, previous versions of Microsoft Visual Studio (ex: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition) and will not install the Visual Studio 2005 Standard edition that ships with the product.  Full functionality of the pre-existing Visual Studio will be retained. Old KB# 1559

Problem: Net Express 4.0 Command prompt MFNETX /DEBUG:program The program is local Why does debug want to connect to a remote machine? Resolution: First check a project under Net Express, animate tab, settings to see if remote and remote machine is set. If remote is set, unsetting that will clear the problem. In some cases the animate setting will not reflex what is in the registry. NOTE THAT CHANGING THE REGISTRY INCORRECTLY COULD CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH THE MACHINE. Windows START BAR RUN REGEDIT Look at the following location. My Computer\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Sofeware\\Micro Focus\\Net Express\\4.0\\IDE\\Execute Configuration. Look at the entries for REMOTE and Machine Name. If REMOTE is ON set it to OFF to resolve the problem. Old KB# 1567

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: 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: With project that contain many source files, the number of open windows can become difficult to manage and take a long time to manually close them all. Resolution: There is an option to keep the animator from opening a new window for each file it steps through. It is called 'Recycle Windows' and can be found by going to Options > Edit > Source Views. When this option is selected, the animator will keep recycling the same window while stepping through different source files. Old KB# 1610

Problem: When installing an agent on a machine using the Discovery Wizard in Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) problems may occur due to network settings. One such error is: The MOM Server failed to open service control manager on computer machinename.domainname. Therefore, the MOM Server cannot complete configuration of agent on the computer. Operation: Agent Install Install account: SCOM_server Error Code: 800706BA Error Description: The RPC server is unavailable. Resolution: The first step is to ensure that the system running the Discovery Wizard can ping the target system using the fully qualified machine name, i.e. machinename.domainname.  If it cannot then the network settings on the client should be checked. On the target system for the agent go to the Advanced TCP/IP Settings, DNS tab of the appropriate connection and ensure that the domain name is entered correctly in the to the "DNS suffi

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: There are three ways to determine the number of records in a file. Resolution: The record count is at offset x"40" and is 8 bytes long in the MF file, which contains the index.  You can use special op code h"0003" to read the header into the record buffer.  Refer to the documentation - File Handler, chapter 7.4 Operating Code. rebuild -n or -f will give you the number of records, if the information is present. The calculation for the number of records in an ISAM file is taking the length of the file and divides by the overall record length.  This is actually one byte longer than the data record. Old KB# 2091#netexpress#AcuCobol#RMCOBOL#ServerExpress#COBOL

Problem: We are moving a host application to Net Express from our mainframe. We want to use Line Sequential files without changing our code. How can this be done? Resolution: The SEQUENTIAL directive can be used for this. Specify the directive as:    SEQUENTIAL(LINE) If you are only using DISPLAY output and want that output to be Line Sequential, then use OUTDD. Specify this directive as:    OUTDD(XYZ.TXT 121 L) Old KB# 1597#netexpress#AcuCobol#ServerExpress#RMCOBOL#COBOL

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: Whenever an event is triggered on an ASP.NET Web page, the run-time system will automatically invoke the associated COBOL event handler method while also passing the required event handling parameters within the call. Resolution: The actual parameters that will be passed depend on the type of the event but in most cases the event handling method will be generated as follows: method-id. "Page_Load" is private. local-storage section. linkage section. 01 param-sender class-sysobject. 01 param-e         class-eventargs. procedure division using by value param-sender param-e. There are two parameters that are passed to the Page_Load event. The first one is "param-sender" which will contain the object that fired the event. This could reference a Button control on the current page. The second parameter is "param-e" which will contain an instance of the "System.EventArg&quo