Rocket® Visual COBOL®

When the cursor is set to an empty line in the editor, the [HOME] key currently always sets the cursor to the leftmost character of the left margin.I'd like to suggest to have the [HOME] key toggle the current cursor position between the leftmost character of the left margin and the first column right to the left margin (the first coding position) on empty lines (see animated GIF image attached). This behaviour would/should mimic the existing behaviour of the [HOME] key on non-empty coding lines.The suggested behaviour would be helpful, increasing coding speed.

I noticed that with Visual COBOL for Visual Studio 2019 TABs are not retained even though the settings in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Tabs are set to use the Horizontal Tabulator character for spacing (see images attached). Doing so, Visual COBOL always misaligns new lines to existing lines with above settings in place.Micro Focus Visual COBOL - Options.pngMicro Focus Visual COBOL - Not inserting TABs.gif

I noticed that IntelliSense support in the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION is quite sparse (see image attached).As far as I can see, there are no suggestions for filling in INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION, FILE-CONTROL or any other sections or content therein.I suggest to fill in the blanks and provide full IntelliSense support for the Environment Division (and other divisions, where applicable), i.e. ...suggesting all COBOL keywords (incl. appropriate division (e.g. ENVIRONMENT DIVISION), section (e.g. INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION) and paragraph (e.g. FILE-CONTROL) names), applicable at the current cursor position, andproviding code snippets for common sections and paragraphs, appropriate at the current cursor position. (I.e. provide FILE-CONTROL code snippets only within an INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.)

I regularly hit the Format Document keyboard combination (Menu Item: Edit > Advanced > Format Document <CTRL> <K>, <CTRL> <D>) while I'm programming. It usually fixes a lot of code formatting issues and cleanses the code.Visual COBOL doesn't come with this option yet.Can we please have this option? It should run the following options from Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL ...Advanced ("Place 'System' $set ilusing statements first")Formatting > IndentationText Casingjkö#FeatureRequests

When browsing COBOL code quickly with the mouse scroll wheel, it's frequently hard to find divisions, or sections, or paragraphs.The current folding indicators are not much of a help when scrolling because they are set aside the code and they are tiny.I believe the following feature suggestion would be very savvy and useful to have available in Micro Focus Visual COBOL:The user should be able to have border lines displayed above any of these three partitioning syntax elements.This is similar to the VisualBASIC option Tools > Options > Text Editor > Basic > Advanced > Show procedure line separators.I suggest to have a similar feature (and corresponding settings at Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Advanced) for Micro Focus Visual COBOL.Please refer to the images I attached for visualization of the idea:Code with lines.pngCode Line Options 1.pngCode Line Options 2.png

Problem Evaluating a condition ("A-DATA-ITEM NOT = ZERO" or "? 1 = 2") in the Immediate Window works in managed, but it fails with the following in native: Unable to evaluate the expression. Not implemented The expression cannot be evaluated while in run mode. Solution The Immediate Window is not supported in native code, and there are other ways of querying values, i.e. the Watch List, QuickBrowse, etc. The expressions such as "A-DATA-ITEM NOT = ZERO" or "? 1 = 2" work in managed code and return TRUE or FALSE. As for native code, the Watch List or Quick Browse should be used instead, so the value will be displayed when entering the name of a data item, but not anything beyond that. For anything else, an error message will be displayed, but the debugger will continue to run normally. However, an enhancement to the compiler has been made in Visual COBOL 6.0, which enables some additional functionality when debugging. For example: 1 a pic 999 valu

i have take the mf demo program ftpprogram.cbl from 2006 (from Fano "Raz" / Product Group / Micro Focus) and actualize with the actual "wininet.h"i had no Problem to program "FtpFindFirstFile", but for find the next files with "InternetFindNextFile" i will have Problem/no Results.Who has find a solution and have interest to work on the new Features to code this in Cobol?Thanks for help!

Problem The build fails to compile a resource (.rc) file if it was imported from a Net Express project using the Import Net Express Project feature. Here is the error message: COBCH0053 Directive /R invalid or not allowed here Solution The problem is caused by the Import Net Express Project feature that sets the wrong Build Action value for .rc files. It sets to 'Compile', which is to compile COBOL sources. The correct Build Action value for .rc files is 'Resource Compile'.     This issue was reported in RPI 1119877 against Visual COBOL 5.0, and the workaround is to change the Build Action to Resource compile. This is now fixed in Visual COBOL 6.0.  

It has happened on several occasions that Help Viewer doesn't recognize the word I have selected. Instead, I come to the Search tab in Help Viewer where the text "Cannot find requested topic on your computer" is shown.But if I enter the word in the Index tab, TALLYING e.g., the word is recognized and information is shown. 

I have a INT/GNT Project consisting of a two files: Program1.cbl and SubRoutine1.cbl. I call SubRoutine1 from Program1 with a simple CALL statement.Now, when I debug it doesn't matter if I press F10 or F11; the debugger will step into the sub routine in both cases. Is it supposed to be that way?

I am new to SQL.  Postgresql has a .NET data provider called Npgsql and with it I can do selects, inserts, updates and deletes from my .NET code.  We would also like to use embedded SQL calls if possible.  We have Postgresql installed on a remote computer and access it over the Web.  I found this on the forum: community.microfocus.com/.../8309.aspx, and tried using OpenESQL but if I select DBMAN(ADO) on the SQL tab of my project and then try to connect to my database I get error -19703 Could not make connection; when I select DBMAN(ODBC) I get error -19703 Data source name too long.  COBOL-IT has a COBOL precompiler for Postgresql so maybe that's what we need.#VisualCOBOL

When unit-testing code, when I want to write code for db connect and db disconnect in the current framework, there is no place holder where we can do this a single time for all the test cases for one program.In the unit-testing framework we have entry points which define the program flow, I’ve mentioned the entry points below in the order that it is executed:entry MFU-TC-METADATAentry MFU-TC-PREFIXentry MFU-TC-SETUP-PREFIXentry MFU-TC-TEARDOWNAll these entry points are executed each time a test case is run, so when we write a code for db connect and disconnect in the test program( in any one of the above sections), and I’ve 10 rows in the input CSV file, then the db connect and db disconnect statements will be executed 10 times.This will cause a performance issue down the line when we are running 100s of test cases for a single program. Is there a way we can control the flow or have a section which is executed only once before and after execution of all test cases written?#VisualCOBOL#

We are going to be using the Microfocus Database Connectors with Visual COBOL.  In our SQL data, we are looking to encrypt certain fields using the Transparent Data Encryption. My question is - Does the Database Connectors handle the encrypting/UN-encrypting part when sending the data to/from Visual COBOL program? 

When debugging in Visual Cobol, if your program displays anything eg.    display "result " some-varthis output ends up in the runw.exe window. How, for all that is holy, do you manage this window? Move it around, decide where it pops up, resize it, anything?If your debuging session is active you just get a busy cursor when you move your pointer to it. If you stop debugging the window goes away. In Net Express you had some control over this window, in Visual Cobol it's just horrible. Case in point, like many others I'm working from home, at the office I have two displays, at home I have one. This is where my runw window ends up, at the edge of the screen, cut off, and I cannot move it. So if anyone has figured out some way to interact with this *thing* - care to share?

Hi All,Hope you are well.When importing Visual COBOL Remote Projects (from Linux Platform), is there a way to filter (remote directories and/or files extensions) when the remote initial directory contains a lot of files?Thanks in advance.Franck.

We are evaluating a possibility of migrating customer database from ORACLE to POSTGRESQLCustomer is using Visual Cobol - PROCobol  (Not only (also  java, .NET) -  but we have around 100000 lines of COBOL).Is it practicable (reasonable) to migrate it from Oracle ProCOBOL to OpenESQL POSTGRES? Has anyone tried it, also with other databases?Any hints?

with openEsql assistant it is possible to convert SQL Pictures clauses in Cobol Syntax.SQL_Name nchar(40) not null --> SQL-Name     pic x(40).Is the reverse way also possible?Who know from a tool that haven this functionality?for one data record, this can be done manually, but by more than 100 file-records, this may be helpfullThanks 

Hello VC Forum,in my current project we have to generate JSON from from a COBOL structure which looks like01 jsonStructure. 05 array1Count pic 9. 05 array2Count pic 9. 05 array1 occurs 1 to 5 depending on array1Count. 05 array2 occurs 1 to 5 depending on array2count. 10 subarrayCount pic 9. 10 subarray occurs 1 to 5 depending on subarrayCount.Unfortunately VC compiler produce on the part "subarray" an error:without ODOSLIDE directive: COBCH0144S OCCURS DEPENDING subsidiary to OCCURS only allowed with ODOSLIDEwith ODOSLIDE directive: COBCH0245S DEPENDING ON item subarrayCount missing or illegal.It is maybe possible, to use fix occurs structures, but then we get problems with the called service because of empty elements generated by JSON GENERATE.Does someone have the same problem? Is there any possibility to use dynamic occurs structures with JSON GENERATE or to avoid the generation of empty elements by fix occurs?ThanksAndreas#J

After a clean compile of the MF sample program AIRCODE.CBL, I got this statement from the 'OUTPUT';------ Build started ------C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community\\MSBuild\\Micro Focus\\Visual COBOL\\v1.0\\MicroFocus.COBOL.CurrentVersion.targets(364,9): error : MSBMF002 - An internal error occurred. Exception text follows:C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community\\MSBuild\\Micro Focus\\Visual COBOL\\v1.0\\MicroFocus.COBOL.CurrentVersion.targets(364,9): error : The path is not of a legal form.========== Build failed ==========Time Elapsed: 0.06 seconds I do not know what the 'legal form' means nor how to correct it. 

Hi,my (maybe 25 years old) Copy starts with01 L-VD-Daten sign leading separate.02 MOVE-LVDDATEN.03 Gesamt.05 VNR PIC S9(8)....Trying to compile it in Visual Cobol 5 CobolCopyBook-Project/COBOL-JVM-Poject I am getting 'COBCH0217S Preceding item at this level has zero length' .Is there maybe any directive to avoid this ?Sincerely,Herbert 

I just got Visual COBOL 5.0 Yesterday, and installed it.  Then I went to install the COBOL Server for windows, and received an error that I cannot install that until Visual COBOL 2017 has been uninstalled.So, I went and uninstalled Visual COBOL - and I am still getting the same error.Windows doesn't show Visual COBOL as an installed program any more, so I don't know where it is finding it.I have attached my log file.  

on mssql tool the database is created, with visual Cobol not, i become mssql-error-code -102 or -226What is wrong?Please see the Notepad document in attachment to create tables is not the Problem! create DATABASE    

Who had programming EDIFACT as Orders, Invoices or DESADV and can publish a Cobol source code?Thanks

We have a program running on COBOL Server 3.0. We read from and write to data files. At some customer locations we install COBOL Server on several PCs. Data files will typically be located on one PC and shared using Windows 10 network file sharing. The other PCs running COBOL Server, on the same network, will access the data files on a mapped network drive.Performance is usually acceptable, but at some locations response times increase drastically. A procedure that takes <2 secs on one setup may take >45 secs on another. I looked at the network traffic on one such troublesome location as I ran the procedure. The network traffic on the PC with the data file was at Send: 2Mbps , Receive: 1Mbps while the other PC was waiting for data (for about 50 secs). Running the same procedure on my own network, with the same data, there is hardly any network activity on the PC with the data files, and the procedure is done in about 1 second.(This may of course be down to network and computer p

Many People have Problems to start new Projects with the new possibility, having use in the past Dialog System Screens with Netexpress and continue with VC5.xWho has developped new forms wicht vs2017/2019 working with VC5.x and sales this for there use!By respecting the 4 parts by developpment:- grafical Screen Interface (VS, html, other?)- program logic/Dialog (managed or unmanaged Cobol)- database interface (not isam, mssql, Oracle, db2, mysql or other)- grafical printing Interface (with Combit List&Laber or other performant Tools)My only Problem is the new grafical Screen Interface and will not make many Errors and can give my experience by the 3 others Programm parts!Who know where to buy grafical Screens?I mean MF must do more and give us more professional examples!Or must we create a Startup?