COBOL/370 Newsletter Issue 2 IBM, Santa Teresa Laboratory May 94 Articles in this issue: LE/370 Release 3 Available NEW COBOL Conversion Tool COBOL Structuring Facility Version 3 CODE/370 Gets CICS Support! Don't Get TRAP(ed) Again! I Want My READY TRACE! OS/VS COBOL Service Extension VS COBOL II Release 3 Service Extension NEW LE/370 Course Available Which Products are LE Enabled? IBM COBOL/370 Newsletter ________________________ IBM COBOL/370 is IBM's strategic compiler for S/370 & S/390 architecture. This newsletter is written solely by the IBM COBOL development and service team. This issue contains several technical articles on new announcements, tips and techniques, as well as information on topics of general interest. For those of you that didn't get a chance to see our first issue, we have decided to include it again with this issues mailing. We are asking all new subscribers to fill out the form on the back and fax it in. This will insure that you receive future issues of the newsletter. You must fill this in one time for you to receive future copies. LE/370 Release 3 Available! ___________________________ LE/370 (Language Environment/370) Release 3 was announced on March 8th. It was generally available for MVS on March 25th and for VM will be available on June 24th, 1994. The highlights of this release are: * Support for running NORENT COBOL/370 programs above the line. * Significant COBOL DYNAMIC Call enhancements. * Support for POSIX * Improved support for C/370 regarding I/O, internationalization and fixed-point decimal support. Early feedback from customers has been very positive about this release, particuarly regarding the COBOL DYNAMIC call performance improvements. More information can be found in announcement letter 294-113 or you may call 1 (800) IBM-3333 Ext. STAR703 for a copy of the letter. For new orders CALL 1 800 IBM-CALL Reference MC100 New COBOL Conversion Tool ________________________ A new release of the COBOL Conversion Aid was announced May 24th, 1994 and is generally available on May 27th (Product number 5785-ABJ). This release adds over 40 customer requested functions as well as major improvements to installability, usability and documentation. The product is used in the migration of OS/VS COBOL to either VS/COBOL II or COBOL/370. It automatically converts OS/VS COBOL source to either VS COBOL II or COBOL/370 source. Some of the enhancements are: * Auto. Literal Delimiter determination * Additional ISPF setup panels * Optional flagging of code requiring manual intervention is provided * Optional automatic compile of converted source code * Elimination of conflicts between user-defined names and words reserved for COBOL/370 * The option to specify the COBOL compiler of choice, for use by CCCA * SMP/E Installable * Improved Documentation This is only a partial listing of enhancements. CCCA can save you a lot of time and effort as you upgrade your inventory from OS/VS COBOL to the newer levels. Please see IBM announcement letter number 294-343 for more details or call 1(800) IBM-3333 Ext. STAR703 for a free copy of the letter. For new orders CALL 1 800 IBM-CALL Reference MC100 COBOL Structuring Facility V3 _____________________________ IBM recently announced COBOL Structuring Facility/MVS and VM Version 3 (Product number 5696-737). This product can be used in either a standalone fashion, or better, in concert with IBM CCCA to aid in migration from OS/VS COBOL to VS COBOL II or COBOL/370. Customers can use CCCA to convert OS/VS COBOL source code and then use COBOL Structuring Facility V3 to not only structure their COBOL code, but do program understanding as well. An of the type of program understanding you can dois: A customer recently received a optimizer message regarding a loop, in a complex application. They wanted to easily find out where the problem lay. By using COBOL Structuring Facility, they were able to understand the program flow and untangle the knots! Major enhancements are: * COBOL Structuring Facility V3 now supports COBOL/370 Intrinsic Functions. * It also supports Language Environment /370. * In addition it has added CICS (TM) HANDLE commands. * The optional COBOL Structuring Consultant feature contains the following significant enhancements: * Cross Reference Browser which visually displays dead code, infinite loops, new data items and ALTERs as well as visually mapping the original source code listing to the newly restructured program. * Structure Chart which provides a graphical view of the structured program hierarchy to aid in program understanding. * Analysis of potential problem areas in source code and expert advice on how to manually improve your source code quality. * Improved reporting. * On-Line tutorials and documentation. For more details, see announcement letter 294-341 or call 1(800) IBM-3333 Ext. STAR703 for your free copy of the letter. For new orders CALL 1 800 IBM-CALL Reference MC100 CODE/370 Gets CICS Support! ___________________________ CODE/370 Version 1, Release 1 Mod 1 has been announced and will be generally available on June 24th, 1994. This release makes CODE/370 the only COBOL/370 enabled CICS debugger on the market today! Other significant enhancements are: * VS COBOL II Support under LE * Support for debugging applications consisting of multiple enclaves and multiple processes * CICS support for pseudo conversational transaction support. Also, in single terminal mode, support for the full range of CICS send and receive messages * Debug Tool support for COBOL/370 IGZ exceptions * Sample REXX and CLIST procedures for batch or interactive compilation, linking and running of COBOL/370 and C/370 programs with CICS and DB2 support * Seamless Debugging of mixed COBOL and C applications For more details, see announcement letter 294-344 or call 1(800) IBM-3333 Ext. STAR703 for your free copy of the letter. For new orders CALL 1 800 IBM-CALL Reference MC100 Don't get TRAP(ed) again! _________________________ One area of apparent confusion that we have run into is the area of running under LE with the TRAP(ON) option. You MUST run TRAP(ON) in order to guarantee correct results. If you use ABTERMENC(ABEND), you will ensure database integrity. The TRAP option specifies how LE/370 routines handle abends and program interrupts. TRAP(ON) must be in effect in order for applications to run successfully. If you are using the CBLTDLI IMS interface and are running with IMS/ESA V2R2, or V3R1 without PTF UN49280, you cannot use the condition handling feature of LE/370. (See the LE/370 release 3 Reference Manual pages 21& 22.) I want my READY TRACE! ______________________ Ever miss good ol' READY TRACE? Well if you do, and you'd like it back... then read on! The COBOL/370 USE FOR DEBUGGING ON ALL PROCEDURES declarative can perform functions similar to READY TRACE and RESET TRACE. For example: ENVIRONMENT DIVISION. CONFIGURATION SECTION. SOURCE-COMPUTER. IBM-370 WITH DEBUGGING MODE. . DATA DIVISION. . . WORKING-STORAGE SECTION. 01 TRACE-SWITCH PIC 9 VALUE ZERO. . 88 READY-TRACE VALUE 1. 88 RESET-TRACE VALUE 0. . PROCEDURE DIVISION. DECLARATIVES. COBOL-DEBUG SECTION. USE FOR DEBUGGING ON ALL PROCEDURES. COBOL-DEBUG-PARA. IF READY-TRACE DISPLAY DEBUG-NAME END-IF. END DECLARATIVES. MAIN-PROCESSING SECTION. . PARAGRAPH-3 SET READY-TRACE TO TRUE. . PARAGRAPH-4. . PARAGRAPH-6. . SET RESET-TRACE TO TRUE. . PARAGRAPH-7. Where DEBUG-NAME is a field of the DEBUG-ITEM special register that displays the procedure-name causing execution of the debugging procedure. (In this example, the object program displays the names of procedures PARAGRAPH-4 through PARAGRAPH-6 as control reaches each procedure within the range.) At run time, you must specify PARM='/DEBUG' in your EXEC statement to activate this debugging procedure. In this way, you have no need to recompile the program to activate or deactivate the debugging declarative. So.. long story short.. you can have your COBOL/370 and READY TRACE too! OS/VS COBOL Service Extension ______________________________ IBM has announced the availability of a service extension offer for OS/VS COBOL customers. This offer covers customers for the period of June 30th, 1994 through June 30th, 1996. This is a fee based offer and the current cost in the US is $5,000 per basic license. This offer is in response to customers requests that need continued access to the IBM Support Center. More information can be obtained in the May 4th, 1993 announcement letter, 393-087 or you may call 1 (800) IBM-3333 Ext. STAR703 for a copy of the letter. VS COBOL II V1R3x Service IBM has extended VS COBOL II release 3 service. IBM had announced in September of 1992, in announcement letter 292-511, that central service would be discontinued on March 26th, 1994. IBM will now service VS COBOL II V1R3x as follows: * Level II support will be extended through 6/30/96 * Level II support will be free of charge. * Level III support will be available for fee of $106 per hour in the US. * This Level III offer is also good through 6/96 The process will be as follows, customers will place calls to level two as they always have. If a reported problem is an APAR, the customer will be asked if they want to have it fixed? If they do, the customer will work with their local IBM representative to establish a service contract. The IBM central service team will then fix the problem and will ship the fix to the customer. This service is being offered to accommodate our customers who have yet to complete the migration to VS COBOL II release 4 or COBOL/370. New LE/370 Course Available ___________________________ A new LE/370 course has been developed. This course (CK36350C) is offered by Skill Dynamics and runs 2.5-3 days. The course was developed for experienced COBOL/370 or VS COBOL II programmers. If you are an experience OS/VS COBOL programmer, this course should be preceded by CK36080C, VS COBOL II Migration. The course was developed jointly by the IBM COBOL development group, Skills Dynamics as well as direct customer involvement. At the end of the course the programmer can expect that they will be able to: * Describe LE/370 and its components. * Write LE/370 programs using callable services. * Use the LE/370 run-time options and write LE/370 inter-language communication applications. * You can also expect to be able to describe LE/370 compatibility with OS/VS COBOL and VS COBOL II applications. Contact (214) 406-7320 for pricing information and (704) 594-551 for course content questions. Which products are LE/370 enabled? __________________________________ If you'd like to know which products are currently reported as LE/370 enabled you can request a copy of the following document, LEVNDRST PACKAGE from your representative , off of the IBM marketing tools disk, or call 1 (800) IBM 3333 Ext. STAR703 for a copy to be faxed or mailed to you. In addition, vendors should fax (408) 463-2633 with their name, phone and mailing address. They will receive information regarding the IBM LE vendor enablement program. This program assists both tool vendors as well as application package providers regarding LE enablement. Survey and Address Information: _______________________________ We'd like to hear back from you regarding whether or not you felt this newsletter was helpful. We also welcome articles from customers for future newsletters. We have allowed space for your comments and address information. 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