Rocket® RM/COBOL

Problem: How can I handle Dates and Null Values in Relativity? Resolution: Some of our Relativity customers have experienced problems with the use of date fields from COBOL applications. The problem primarily occurs because many applications written in COBOL make use of certain field characteristics that cause a date field to be invalid in ODBC applications. For instance, a date field in COBOL that contains spaces or zeroes is perfectly acceptable since the application code can test for those values and take appropriate action. Whereas, when ODBC tools employ a field which is defined as being a date, it must only contain a valid date. As a way around this problem, some Relativity installations have avoided the use of Date Transforms and simply used the date as a numeric fi

Problem: Can symbolic characters be used in an unstring command? Resolution: Yes. See the UNSYMBOL.CBL example program attached. Attachments: UNSYMBOL.CBL Old KB# 6111

Problem: Why is my data not stored as a numeric? Resolution: If you have a group item, all members of the group are treated as alphanumeric, even those defined as a numeric field. For more information, see the Language Reference Manual, under Data Structures.      Old KB# 6120

Problem: How do I use the RENAME subprogram call? Resolution: Please see the attached file RENAME-EXAMPLE.CBL Attachments: RENAME-EXAMPLE.CBL Old KB# 6125

Problem: What does C$OSLockInfo Subprogram do? Resolution: C$OSLockInfo returns the PID of the process that has the record locked when a lock request fails. It should be called immediately after a lock request fails. This subprogram is available only under UNIX; there is no Windows equivalent. Calling Sequence: CALL "C$OSLockinfo" USING processid processid is a four-byte, unsigned COMP-4 numeric item.      Old KB# 6123

Problem: What's the maximum size of Working Storage? Resolution: There are several limits that apply to Working Storage: The maximum length of an elementary data item is 65280 characters. The maximum length of an element of a table is 65280 characters (that is, data items subordinate to an OCCURS clause cannot exceed 65280 characters in length). The maximum number of occurrences of a table element is 65535. That is, in an OCCURS clause, the value of integer-2 must be less than or equal to 65535. However, the total size of all data defined in WS can be as big as memory allows.      Old KB# 6112

Problem: Moved from test to production server - now when client tries to start application it goes right to the ssdisconnect screen Resolution: If you are receiving an immediate ssdissconnect, it usually means it is not reaching the host designated in the project settings. Now that you have moved from test to production - check to see if the host name or IP number is correct - also very important the PORT number -  in the admin\\project  - edit project (application) in question Old KB# 5903

Problem: A user cannot save a new page in Builder. Resolution: Seems that the memory that EnterpriseLink Builder was trying to access to save the page was unavailable.  Once the user was able to reboot his machine and open Builder and then try to save the page, it worked. Old KB# 5907#EnterpriseLink

Problem: Is there  a way to delete screens/pages from the repository without having to delete them one by one in Builder ? Resolution: We now provide 2 utilities (batch files) to delete screens and pages. Documentation for command-line batch files to Delete Screens and/or Delete Pages has been added to the EL Wiki in www.enterpriselink.com -> Authors.    Once inside EL Wiki, do a search on "Delete Pages" or "Delete Screens".   Detailed information including the batch files themselves and their operation is given.   Please pay careful attention to the "Note" at the bottom of each entry. For Deleting Screens, the file, DeleteScreens.bat should be executed. It requires two par

Problem: Failed attempt at using Project Manager locked my project. How can I unlock them to use outside of Project Manager? Resolution: Solution without project manangement. Notes: You don't have to actually use the Master Repository at all. Assuming your ELRepository is locked Create a new DNS (mdb)     Administration-> Repository -> Add new DNS -> *.mdb     change the Data Source Name to ELRepositorynew     Choose a new mdb file in a new location Initialize     Administration -> Repository -> schema -> ELRepositorynew -> initialize       

Problem: Is there a way to reset a user associated with files that have previously been checked-out in the Project Management Utility?   The customer ran the query to reset the locks (as they had problems checking in and checking out files) which worked fine, i.e., the page is no longer checked out BUT the USER associated with the Checkout is still listed in RED.  Is there a way to reset this? Resolution: A database administrator for the underlying database could issue the following query against the ELMasterRepository ODBC DSN using their favorite SQL tool or via http://localhost/stadmin/query.html :    UPDATE pm_pageinfo    SET checkedoutto = NULL,        chec

Problem: Does EL require DCOM services to be running?  Standards recommend that DCOM be turned off.  Will this affect the way EnterpriseLink is run? Resolution: No, DCOM, Distributed Component Object Model, is not necessary for EntepriseLink. Old KB# 5906#Rumba

Problem: Why do I get an 47,01 error on an OPEN OUTPUT, and there are no READS? Resolution: Check to see if there is an UNLOCK in the statement. UNLOCK is not allowed in an OPEN OUTPUT. Old KB# 6115

Problem: Is there a pause, sleep, or wait command in RM/Cobol? Resolution: C$Delay is used to relinquish the CPU for a length of time specified in seconds. Calling C$Delay will allow other programs to run while the original program waits. The amount of delay is not exact. It depends upon the particular machine configuration and the load on the machine. Calling Sequence: CALL "C$Delay" USING seconds "seconds" is a PICTURE 9(n) BINARY, where n can be a digit from 1 to 9. It specifies the length of time, in seconds, to delay. Delays longer than one day are not normally meaningful and should not be used.      Old KB# 6122

Problem: What causes Truncated Records? Resolution: If a program defines a record length that is less than the length of the records in the data file, the data will be truncated and no warning messages are generated. This is a feature of COBOL fixed length records. Record description entries need not describe the entire record. This could be useful, for example, to allow expansion of the record description without having to enter a filler in each record description. A RECORD Clause with CONTAINS n CHARACTERS can be used to define a fixed length record. For variable length records, a RECORD Clause can also define the minimum and maximum length of the records in the file. The record descriptions cannot be less than the minimum nor greater than the maximum record area, but equa

Problem: Can i get rid of the some of the buttons of the keyboard that appears at the bottom of the page - that appears when you run the customized application. Resolution: In builder, highlight the page you are modifying and do a right click on properties. click on the Display tab, and uncheck the "include button bar" You will then have to place your own buttons on the page, to click on the buttons for each type of keyboard function that may go with the page. Make sure you do a save and flush the cache before running to see the new pages modified, if you dont see the new pages, restart the web service to clear all cache. Old KB# 5899

Problem: Why do I get a 204 Error on CALL "SYSTEM"? Resolution: The limit on the number of bytes for a Windows command line is 130 (per the RM/COBOL User's Guide). A command line greater than that could clobber data structures. If the command is too long, it will return an error 204. Old KB# 6124

Problem: How can I compute Square Roots and Cubed Roots? Resolution: To find the square root of a number in RM/COBOL, use this statement: compute RESULT rounded = NUMBER ** 0.5 Use 0.33 for the cubed root. The "rounded" phrase is needed because the number 4 returns a root of 1.99..., only bigger numbers (9 and up) return the correct whole number for the root without rounding. The **  operator performs exponentiation when used with a whole number instead of a decimal.      Old KB# 6113

Problem: How can I use redirected Input to a Cobol Program? Resolution: Please see the attached program acp.cbl as an example of a program which accepts redirected input. Unfortunately, it is not possible to redirect input in Windows.  Due to the nature of how Windows handles input, redirection is impossible.   You can redirect input with the UNIX(v10.01) and DOS(v6.10.02) versions of RM/COBOL, however.      Attachments: ACP.CBL Old KB# 6117

Problem: How do I resolve "Error invoking unauthorized copy..." on Windows 2003? (Loc 508) Resolution: If the administrator account can run, the most likely cause of this error is insufficient privileges to create the needed key in the registry entry: [HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Liant Software Corporation\\Common The runtime requires a user ID with appropriate permissions to access HKLM, or at the very least, that allow the user access to that registry entry.  A Power User normally has sufficient permissions to write to HKLM, so an Administrator user ID is not required. The HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Liant Software Corporation\\Common portion of the registry is used to make the runtime start faster, so it is advantageous to allow this access.

Problem: How can I run the RPCPlusServer as a service? Resolution: There are two ways: 1. There is a Windows Resource Kit program (srvany.exe) that will run any program as a service (see Microsoft KB ID 137890). 2. Use the RPCPlusService described in Chapter 9 of the RPC 1.4 User's Guide, which you can download from here: http://www.liant.us/docs.html      Attachments: RPCPlusService.zip Old KB# 4702

Problem: How can I get the WOW 10.01 patched dlls? Resolution: The new dlls are in the attached zip file. Please see the included text file for more information. Attachments: WOW10.01 .zip Old KB# 4703

Problem: How can I scroll a WOW form? Resolution: Out of the box, WOW does not provide a scrolling functionality. However, it does provide all the pieces needed to implement.   (Visual Basic also doesn’t provide this type of scrolling support but with some programming you can add the desired functionality.) Here's how: 1. Set the form’s AllowFilterEvents property to false. 2. Add a container control to the form (the example program included uses the free Innovasys FramePlus control, as it allows the frame to be set to none, making it transparent to the user - see attached). 3. Place all the other controls inside the container control. 4. Add code to set the container control's size and position when the form is cr

Problem: How do you calculate the value of the "Cache Size" in the Enterprise Link configuration page? Resolution: The cache setting in EnterpriseLink is very simple.  It is a single number which represents the number of screens or pages that are held in memory.  So, if you have 150 pages and 200 screens across all the EL projects, a number of "200" would guarantee that all pages and screens are held in memory.  Usually, an EnterpriseLink project follows an 80-20 access pattern:  20% of the pages are accessed 80% of the time.  The remaining 80% of the pages are accessed the remainder of the time.  This means that you don't need to have a cache size greater than the number of pages.  Since EnterpriseLink uses a least-recent

Problem: What is causing an Error 28[14] in LoadDocument during XML Import? Resolution: One main cause of this is that the schema file (.xsd extension) is among the model files.  If the schema is present, the LoadDocument validates the input document against the schema.  Unfortunately, most input documents are not schema-valid at this time, so the LoadDocument fails. Old KB# 4710