Micro Focus run-time configuration settings are specified in the run-time configuration file.  This is a text file you can edit with a standard text editor.  It is an optional file (no error will be issued if it does not exist) with the default name $COBDIR/etc/cobconfig.

You can specify a different filename for the configuration file by setting the environment variable COBCONFIG; for example:

COBCONFIG=$HOME/myconfig
export COBCONFIG

When setting run-time configurables, how can a person be certain the run-time configuration file is actually being found and recognized?

The simplest way to do this is to purposefully put a syntax error in the configuration file and then attempt to execute a COBOL program.  If the configuration file is successfully found, a error message should appear.  If no message appears, further investigation into the location of the configuration file is required.

The following line in the COBCONFIG file produces an error message at run time:

set command_line_linkage=XXX

Having set this, try to run a COBOL program.  If the COBCONFIG file is found, the runtime system will report the syntax error in the file since XXX is not a valid parameter for command_line_linkage.