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Changes in IBM® Enterprise COBOL for z/OS, Version 6 Release 2 with PTFs installed

New and changed compiler options

  • The following compiler option is new:
    • PI91584: COPYLOC: The new COPYLOC compiler option can be used to add either a PDSE (or PDS) dataset or z/OS® UNIX directory as an additional location to be searched for copy members during the library phase.
    • PH05855: INITIAL: The new INITIAL compiler option allows you to get a program that has initial values in data items each time the program is called, without having to add the IS INITIAL clause to the PROGRAM-ID paragraph, and without having to use dynamic CALL and CANCEL statements.
  • The following compiler options are modified:
    • PI90571: ZONEDATA: The ZONEDATA option is updated to affect the behaviour of MOVE statements, comparisons, and computations for USAGE DISPLAY or PACKED-DECIMAL data items that could contain invalid digits, an invalid sign code, or invalid zone bits.
    • PI91585: RULES: New suboptions OMITODOMIN | NOOMITODOMIN are added to the RULES option to control whether the compiler will issue warning messages for any OCCURS DEPENDING ON clauses that are specified without integer-1 (the minimum number of occurrences).
    • PI91586: RULES: New suboptions UNREF | NOUNREFALL | NOUNREFSOURCE are added to the RULES option to control whether the compiler will report unreferenced data items, and to control whether the reporting is done only for data items not declared in a copy member (NOUNREFSOURCE) or all data items (NOUNREFALL).
    • PI96135: NUMCHECK(PAC): For packed decimal (COMP-3) data items that have an even number of digits, the unused bits are checked for zeros.
    • PI98480: NUMCHECK(ZON): New suboptions ALPHNUM | NOALPHNUM are added to the NUMCHECK(ZON) option to control whether the compiler will generate code for an implicit numeric class test for zoned decimal data items that are being compared with an alphanumeric data item, alphanumeric literal or alphanumeric figurative constant.
    • PH08642: NUMCHECK: Redundant checks previously added by the NUMCHECK option have been removed, improving performance, and some checks can be done at compile time. Specifying NUMCHECK may also cause the compiler to produce some messages at compile time instead of at runtime.
    • PH09225: INITCHECK: The INITCHECK option can be specified with OPTIMIZE(0).

New and changed statements

  • PI91584: As the new compiler option COPYLOC is introduced, the COPY statement is updated.
  • PI95081: A new LOC(24|31) phrase is added to the ALLOCATE statement to control the location of dynamic storage that is acquired, which overrides the influence of the DATA compiler option when determining the location of dynamic storage that is acquired.
  • PI97160: SET TO FALSE and WHEN SET TO FALSE are introduced as defined in the 2002 COBOL Standard, which allows you to avoid explicit references to invalid values in the PROCEDURE DIVISION.
  • Runtime APARs PH20569(V2R2) and PH21261(V2R3/V2R4): A new runtime option (IGZCOMPAT) for MERGE statement is introduced to obtain support for DFSORT option NOBLKSET and the conventional merge method for Enterprise COBOL V5 or later versions.

IBM-supplied CICS reserved-word table changes

  • PI91589: New COBOL words are added to the IBM-supplied CICS® reserved-word table.

Intrinsic function enhancements

  • PI97434: Add support for processing national data items with the following intrinsic functions:
    • REVERSE
    • ULENGTH
    • UPOS
    • USUBSTR
    • UWIDTH
    This PTF pre-reqs the PTF(s) for Language Environment® (LE) APAR PI97224 (z/OS V2R1/V2R2) and APAR PI97712 (z/OS V2R3). Make sure that the PTF(s) for APAR PI97224 or APAR PI97712 are installed on Language Environment (LE) on all systems where COBOL programs will be run before using the compiler with the PTF for PI97434 installed.
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