Converting legacy code from Fujitsu NetCOBOL V10.1.0

Hello,

Perhaps somebody else has gone thru this conversion process and has some information on it, but as far as I know, Rocket has no documentation on this subject.

Chris, 

Thanks for reply. 

Kevin

Kevin,

There is no documentation I am aware of to assist with this effort. I worked for Fujitsu COBOL (2000 to 2006) and Micro Focus for roughly 25 years. Depending on what technologies you used with NetCOBOL will determine how easy or not the conversion will be. 

For instance, did you use the NetCOBOL .NET capabilities (did you call .NET Frameworks from COBOL)?

Did you use the GUI screen painter PowerCOBOL?

A lot of questions...

The original COBOL source was written for a mainframe environment. About 20 years ago, we switched over the COBOL code to work with primarily SQL Server databases. Since I have been with the company, 25+ years, we have employed a server/client paradigm, where the core program was the server and the client was a Windows GUI written in C/C++. To communicate with SQL Server, we wrote our own Windows DLL that quired the database, again written in C/C++. This allowed for the core program to interface with this DLL to retrieve the data records themselves. I was responsible for both the client GUI & query DLL. 

When I assumed responsibility for the maintenance of our core software in 2020, I continued to use the developer tools, Fujitsu NetCOBOL for Window (v10), to build our software when updates were necessary. However, we are planning to add some significant changes to our core program and the aforementioned tools, in my opinion are too outdated and cumbersome to use for this planned update. 

So the conversion process of the COBOL source is mostly to match syntax of the Visual COBOL from that found in the Fujitsu COBOL source. 

Kevin,

Thanks for the quick reply. Based on your description you should have few if any issues recompiling with the current version of Visual COBOL. You may have to address some C/C++ interface parameters but that should be about it. I would suggest reaching out to our Sales organization and request a trial license of Visual COBOL (for Visual Studio I am assuming). Or you can download the Personal Edition from the website (https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/products/cobol/visual-cobol-personal-edition)  and give it a try. I believe it is a timed version. One restriction is you cannot create fully executable modules so all of your testing will have to be within Visual Studio.

Best Wishes...

I’m one step ahead of you. I did download and install the PE edition. I took a supporting utility program for our software that is written in COBOL, ran Visual COBOL through its paces. What I was able to do, I am very impressed with the integration into Visual Studio. However, I’m dead in the water because of this situation:  

MakeKey.CBL (2187,7-8) : error COBCH0804 : Source limit of 2200 procedure lines exceeded 

So now my question is this: What is meant by ‘procedure lines’? Is this to mean the number executable statements found within the PROCEDURE DIVISION or all statements contained within the source itself, including any COPY statements used? 

An answer to my query would be greatly appreciated!

Kevin

Kevin, my apologies… I didn’t realize there was a limit to the lines of code permissible with the Personal Edition. Yes, it means there is a limit of 2200 lines of code in the Procedure Division of a COBOL program. It only applies to the Procedure Division, not the whole program. BUT… if you have copybooks in the Procedure Division the expanded code may be included in that count.

Given this limit, I would suggest reaching out to our Sales Team and arranging a trial license. They can assist with the details related to that.

I understand the reasoning for limiting the source lines. I’m just disappointed that this limit was not emphasized during the time of installation and/or when first activated within Visual Studio itself. If it’s in the documentation, I did not see any mention of it or I personally overlooked it.