Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
You are asking a 'technology' question, and the answer is, "Yes.".
What are the business drivers for moving your clients' database from RM/COBOL indexed files to MySQL? Knowing the answer to this question will probably result in better advice.
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
Nothing compelling BUT it was more of a curiosity question on my part to better understand my options. I know connecting to RDBMS is nothing new in the Cobol world in general, but I don't see anything that explains how to do this with RMCobol. And maybe you can't. But these clients describe many times having to have custom Cobol code written just to correct a field or reinsert an unintendedly deleted key, etc. In RDBMS/SQL you would just use SQL to insert. But (to the best of my knowledge) there is no ISAM file "browser"/"editor", etc, short of some sort of application layer coding. So, I am not asking with respect to specific, mission-critical business driven needs to do SQL over ISAM, I just simply want to know. Thanks again.
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
By the way, I did come across this (Cobol Access Plus):
http://www.rldt.fr/
Is it any good or even still an active product? The web site is dated.
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
It seems that you are describing data scrubbing, for which Relativity can be used quite effectively. You said before that you know Relativity gives ODBC access to the files. Do the clients presently have Relativity? If so, then you already have the tool in place. You will need to study the Relativity Designer help file for the information about creating tables that permit INSERT and UPDATE. You probably should reserve these tables to an administrative user so that a customer does not inadvertantly update data outside their COBOL application (which is busy enforcing business rules and generally should be maintaining the integrity of the data).
If the customers are not already using Relativity, then you can offer them a 'two-fer' because you will be opening up the database to more easily used ad hoc reporting tools (Crystal Reports, MS-Access, MS-Excel, business intelligence tools, etc.), as well as providing a means to fix up an occasional data 'oops.'
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
Regarding RL/DT: This product was once sold as RM/plusDB (under license from RL/DT), but was withdrawn from the market. I do not know if it is still available.
RM/COBOL provides (at no extra charge) InstantSQL, which you can find documented here. This is not a standard embedded SQL, but many customers find it useful. InstantSQL targets ODBC, so you would use it with MySQL's ODBC driver.
For a more traditional embedded SQL, you might have a look at the open source offering for Firebird.
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
I understand what Relativity is and does. Another unrelated client used it a few years back to do exactly what you describe (and it was not a small matter for their complex configuration). My reference examples above are just some situational things that have popped up for these new clients over time that they noted to me. But what I want to know for broader reasons (namely I'm an RDBMS preferring kind of guy) is if, out of the box, can RMCobol use an RDBMS backend (like MySQL) in place of having only the ISAM files for persistent storage? If it can't, is there some other add-on from MicroFocus for RMCobol that would permit this? Do you know if MFCobol or Visual Cobol support using RDBMS backends? If I am to maintain these new clients for the long haul, I may propose moving off RMCobol to something that can support RDBMS backends. Thus my inquiry here. Thanks again!
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
I understand what Relativity is and does. Another unrelated client used it a few years back to do exactly what you describe (and it was not a small matter for their complex configuration). My reference examples above are just some situational things that have popped up for these new clients over time that they noted to me. But what I want to know for broader reasons (namely I'm an RDBMS preferring kind of guy) is if, out of the box, can RMCobol use an RDBMS backend (like MySQL) in place of having only the ISAM files for persistent storage? If it can't, is there some other add-on from MicroFocus for RMCobol that would permit this? Do you know if MFCobol or Visual Cobol support using RDBMS backends? If I am to maintain these new clients for the long haul, I may propose moving off RMCobol to something that can support RDBMS backends. Thus my inquiry here. Thanks again!
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
I understand what Relativity is and does. Another unrelated client used it a few years back to do exactly what you describe (and it was not a small matter for their complex configuration). My reference examples above are just some situational things that have popped up for these new clients over time that they noted to me. But what I want to know for broader reasons (namely I'm an RDBMS preferring kind of guy) is if, out of the box, can RMCobol use an RDBMS backend (like MySQL) in place of having only the ISAM files for persistent storage? If it can't, is there some other add-on from MicroFocus for RMCobol that would permit this? Do you know if MFCobol or Visual Cobol support using RDBMS backends? If I am to maintain these new clients for the long haul, I may propose moving off RMCobol to something that can support RDBMS backends. Thus my inquiry here. Thanks again!
Is this possible? I have searched around and can't seem to get a definitive answer. I know Relativity gives ODBC access to the cobol files, but I am wanting to know can I use MySQL (or any SQL RDBMS for that matter) as the database backend to an RMCobol app (and not using the ISAM files). I am relatively new to Cobol. Took it in college back in mid 80s. I inherited some clients that use this app written in RMCobol. Was exploring options. I know of but haven't studied Visual Cobol that much. I have also read that depending on what RM extensions were used, Open Cobol might be able to compile RMCobol source. I think it can CALL an RDBMS backend. If RMCobol can't, that would really surprise me in this day and age since it is still being sold.
Thanks!
Mark
________________________________________________________
Mark J. Bailey Jobsoft Design & Development, Inc.
104 Arlington Place, Suite 100 Franklin, TN 37064
EMAIL: mjb@jobsoft.com WEB: http://www.jobsoft.com/
VOICE:(615)904-9559 FAX:(615)904-9576 CELL:(615)691-6580
Ooops, sorry Tom, our posts crossed! :) OK, good deal. I will investigate InstantSQL and Firebird. I guess I had hoped RMCobol would of had more native support for such. But I have to use JDBC with my Java work with MySQL, so InstantSQL sounds like it might be more along those lines. Thanks again for the feedback!
