Rocket® Visual COBOL®

Good morning, I have been working in COBOL for over 20 years and I have always believed that when a main program (PA) calls a second program (PB) using `CALL PB USING field1 field2 field3` and the procedure in PB is `PROCEDURE USING field1 field2 field3`, the parameters that are put in the `using` procedure of a program (PB) should be defined in the `linkage` section, but I see in the documentation this“ Data-name-1 must be defined as a level 01 or a level 77 entry in the Linkage Section , File Section or Working-Storage Section”This raises a lot of questions for me.Has this always been the case? If the variables in PB are defined in the working storage section, what relationship do the variables in PA have with those in PB? How does assigning values ​​to variables in PB affect the variables defined in PA? Could the call be made from PA without passing those parameters?

I’m not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question. What are employers looking for when  it comes to COBOL. Is proficiency in COBOL the only requisite they want, or are they looking for other things as well? At the age of 70, and with issues like memory retention and learning new things, learning COBOL is one thing. Learning more than just a programming language may be more than I can muster.

Hi,I have found a changes in behaviour with the sql disconnect function between native COBOL (using ODBC) and .NET COBOL (using ADO) and was wondering whether these are deliberate or notScenario: I have a primary SQL connection ‘MAIN’ which is used for the majority of processing. However I have two other connections ‘ADMIN’ and ‘ALTERNATE’ which are used to perform elevated functions (ADMIN) or functions which I want disconnected from main (ALTERNATE)In native COBOL when I disconnected from one of these secondary connections it automatically reverted to the MAIN connection however in .NET COBOL this is not the case and I am finding I need to issue a ‘set connection’ .Also in native COBOL when the connection is closed it physically kills the connection to SQL - i.e. the SPID is no longer active. In NET COBOL whilst the connection is logically closed I see that the SPID still exists in SQL.  Are these changes deliberate? Peter 

Our Cobol apps run natively on a Linux host with just local logging files, and I was wondering if there is any documentation on emitting (Opentelemetry) traces to an external collector (via network).If not natively supported, maybe people have some other ideas how to bridge the gap? Maybe building some integration via “Consolidated Tracing Facility” (CTF)?Thanks for any idea!Tung

This pertains to the use of external filehandlers, where my COBOL class is compiled with CALLFH"abcdef", which in tern needs to call fh/aaaaaa.dll which exists in the sub folder fh.The COBOL has :CALL “fh/aaaaaa” using ………During animation I debug the class, debug abcdef, but when it gets to the CALL “fh/aaaaaa” it doesn’t raise an exception but doesn’t execute the code either.I can see from procmon that the assembly was indeed loaded as well as the .pdb but just ignored almost as though it was looking for the programid but that didn’t match.Is this not supported?Is there an COBOL .NET  replacement for COBPATH ?Neil 

I am trying to call non-static Java methods from an executable file since static methods work fine in this environment.  I can accomplish this using cobjrun but it seems like the $java$ is not resolved correctly without cobjrun.I have tried adding all mf*.jar from the VisualCobol/lib directory into my CLASSPATH before execution but always get a load error similar to the following:Load error : file '$java$JavaCalculator'error code: 198, pc=0, call=1, seg=0198     Load failure Here are the files that show the failure:natcobol.cbl       $set ooctrl(+p-f)       program-id. natcobol.       class-control.          claJavacalled is class "$java$JavaCalculator".      * The above maps the Java class 'JavaCalculator' to the COBOL class name 'claJavacalled'       working-storage section.        copy "javatypes.cpy".           01 hCla            object reference.           01 l1              jlong value 10.           01 l2              jlong value 5.           01 retl            jlong.           0

Hi,I am posting this question on behalf of a customer, to ensure it goes to the relevant forum and a place they they can see the post. Once I post this I'll share the link with the customer and ask to reply/comment here also.They ask:Does somebody know how to translate the following C#-Lambda-Command to Visual Cobol ?Example (the second last line):private void FlexGrid_Load(object sender, EventArgs e){string conn = Util.GetConnectionString();var ds = new DataSet();string[] tables = "Customers, Orders".Split(',');foreach (string tableName in tables){Util.FillTable(ds, tableName, conn);}// Defining relation between master and detail gridds.Relations.Add("Customers_Orders",ds.Tables["Customers"].Columns["CustomerID"],ds.Tables["Orders"].Columns["CustomerID"]);flexGrid.DataSource = ds;flexGrid.DataMember = "Customers";flexGrid.RowDetailProvider = (g, r) => new C1FlexGridRowDetail();flexGrid.AreRowDetailsFrozen = false;}}They have used the C# to COBOL convertor website but the code that

Good morning.I'd like someone to explain how the cobutf8 utility works to see if we can use it in our company.We work with Microfocus Visual COBOL 8.0 for Eclipse (Unix/Linux).The database is Informix, and a few years ago we migrated to the UTF-8 locale.The OS has LANG=es_ES.UTF-8.However, some integrations with other companies require files with a fixed position structure. We've found that with UTF-8 encoding, there's a left shift for each UTF-8 character written. Currently, we've added calls to iconv before each move to the file variable, but that's very cumbersome when the file has many fields.

The following code crashes when it is executed within Visual Studio 2022: CALL GetCurrentDirectory  USING BY VALUE     PC-PATH-LENGTHBY REFERENCE CURRENT-PC-DIRECTORYRETURNING iRetEND-CALL.it fails with the error message: 173     Called program file not found in drive/directory: GetCurrentDirectoryAI updated the PATH variable to include the folders where the COBOL runtime exists. So why does it not find the Windows API function? Is this a limitation of the PE version or some other property to build has not been set correctly? Any help is appreciated. Kevin

Hi ,we works with Micro Focus Visual cobol 8.0 for Eclipse on linux/UnixWe have a program  with a file that we defines so:file-control.     select prevcob    assign to wk-prevcob     organization is line sequential.data division.file section.fd prevcob.01  reg-prevcob               pic x(185).and a working variable that defines the file structure as follows:01 wk-reg-prevcob-pru.    10 prevcob-nombre-pru            pic x(40)      value spaces.    10 prevcob-impdivisa-pru         pic 9(16)v99   value 0.    10 resto                         pic x(127).We define a cusor that obtains data from a database with UTF-8 locales in Informix and passes it to the variables of the working (the host variable are defined like pic x(300) and pic s9(16)v9(2))move clinombr                    to prevcob-nombre-prumove srvimpdivi                  to prevcob-impdivisa-pru we write the file as follws:write reg-prevcob from wk-reg-prevcob-pruThe problem is that when field prevcob-nombre-pru contains a utf8 ch

Is there any documentation on help in converting from Fujitsu COBOL to Visual COBOL? 

After installing the Visual COBOL PE, a took a utility program written in Fujitsu COBOL, to see how much of the source would or would not compile. There were few lines of code in the utility program that did not compile and I changed and/or deleted them so as the original source compiled successfully. However, the source included the COPY WINDOWS statement and that is where the majority of the errors occurred when compiled the windows.cpy file! My first thought was that the original source was to blame. I subsequently took the COBOL source template  file that is created when a new project is started. Below is the contents of that file:         identification division.       program-id. Program1.       environment division.       configuration section.       data division.       working-storage section.       COPY WINDOWS. *> pick up Windows defines       procedure division.           goback.       end program Program1. The above code produced the same errors in the windows.cpy file.

I have requested to download Visual COBOL Personal Edition, but I have not received an email or reply to download Visual COBOL Personal Edition. What should I do so that I can download Visual COBOL Personal Edition?

The book is by Micro Focus, which is the previous owner of Visual COBOL. It references available materials at their website: http://www.microfocus.com/visualcobolbook. The book itself is copyright 2017 by Micro Focus. Following that link results in a 404 (page not found) error. Is there a current website that contains the materials related to the book?Concerning murach’s mainframe COBOL, the book is copyright 2004, Mike Murach and Associates, Inc. It also makes references to Visual COBOL, but given the copyright date, I can see any links provided in that book as being more outdated than the Visual COBOL book. Is there a current website that contains any materials related to that book?

I filled out the digital form with my email, as you are supposed to do to get the license to use the product. But I have not received a license code via email yet. I was hoping someone here could help me. 

I have successfully downloaded Visual COBOL. Reading the pdf, I find it talks about which versions of Visual Studio are supported. I think the doc may be somewhat outdated since it doesn’t talk about .NET 8 or Visual Studio Community 2022 edition. The first recommended topic to view is 8 years old, so I don’t think it applies. I am withholding installation until I know it will work with my system. I have:--HP Pavilion 64-Bit Gaming LaptopAMD Ryzen 5 Processor16 Gigs RAM1-TB Internal StorageWindows 11 Home EditionExternal 8-TB Solid-State Hard DriveVisual Studio Community 2022 64-bit Edition, Version 17.14.24Will Visual COBOL work with my system? 

Hey everyone,As we step into 2026, one thing is certain: GenAI will remain a major topic this year. That raises an important question — how can you leverage GenAI to accelerate COBOL modernization?This question inspired our latest insights article:✅ When generative AI delivers real value in COBOL modernization, and when it can lead to dangerous hallucinations✅ How to address the skills shortage and improve knowledge transfer using GenAI✅ What makes Rocket Software’s approach to GenAI different, ensuring you get insights you can trust for your modernization projectsRead the full post here: The Role of Generative AI in COBOL Modernization | Rocket SoftwareIf you have any questions or want us to dive deeper into any of these topics, let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

Hi.Following our migration from MF Enterprise Developer to Rocket Cobol for VSCode, we are experiencing some Language Server errors in VSCode that do not show up in MF, but we are unable to figure out how to fix them. We assume is probably related to missing or incorrect compiler directives, but we are not sure. This is the actual configuration of Cobol directives in MF: ​​​​​​And this is the configuration of Cobol Default Directives on Rocket Cobol (basically replicating the ones in MF, but including a few extra ones, like assign”external” to fix some COBCH0005 errors)  However, with this configuration, we are seeing some errors, such as COBCH0641 , COBCH0628 or COBCH0002, and  we have no clue how to fix them. Here are some of them: (at least we can see the OUTLINE section seems to be working fine and recognizing Cobol structures) Any idea how to ensure Language Server behaves in the same way as MF ? We are NOT using directives.mf files so far, but direct configuration on the Rocket C

We currently have a native COBOL application that uses dynamic SQL (via OpenESQL) to fetch, insert and update into Microsoft SQL.This includes varbinary(max) columns which we have working and I suspect it was based on the demo which was available from this link https://community.rocketsoftware.com/rocket-visual-cobol-28/demo-using-the-varbinary-max-column-type-from-cobol-4560. Unfortunately the link to the actual demo is no longer available.I now have the fun and games of trying to convert this logic to .NET core Visual COBOL and I am really struggling to work out how to ‘stitch’ the 65k blocks back together into the correct format and would really appreciate some guidance on this (the same goes for splitting it into the 65k blocks to insert/update).Is there any chance for the demo mentioned to be converted into .NET Core VC so that I can refer to it and work out what I need to do?Thanks in advance 

I think that no, but…Can I do something like that?:       77 lsMethod string.           Move 'gabert' to lsMethod           Invoke Classes lsMethod returning QuebraGalho  Hugs.Antonio JoãoVisual COBO + Visual Studio.

Hi everyone,Thank you again to everyone who joined the State & the Future of COBOL webinar.  If you missed it or would like to share it with your colleagues, here is the recording: The State & The Future of COBOL | Rocket SoftwareStay tuned and turn on the Rocket Forum notifications so you don’t miss the next event. Here are the quiz winners:Marc C.Sebastian S.Thibaut C.Elsabe A.Frank B.Jebastin K.Paul M.Jonathan S.Juan U.Florian G.And then Allan L. who guess the author of the COBOL quote.We'll share the gift details with everyone next week.Best,Rocket COBOL team