Changes in IBM® Enterprise COBOL for z/OS® and OS/390®, Version 3 Release 2

  • The compiler has been enhanced to support new features of Debug Tool:
    • Playback support lets you record and replay application execution paths and data values.
    • Automonitor support displays the values of variables that are referenced in the current statement during debugging.
    • Programs that have been compiled with the OPTIMIZE and TEST(NONE,SYM,. . .) options are supported for debugging.
    • The Debug Tool GOTO command is enabled for programs that have been compiled with the NOOPTIMIZE option and TEST option with any of its suboptions. (In earlier releases, the GOTO command was not supported for programs compiled with TEST(NONE, . . .).)
    For further details about these enhancements to debugging support, see the Debug Tool User's Guide.
  • Extending Java™ interoperability to IMS : Object-oriented COBOL programs can run in an IMS Java dependent region. The object-oriented COBOL and Java languages can be mixed in a single application.
  • Enhanced support for Java interoperability:
    • The OPTIMIZE compiler option is fully supported for programs that contain OO syntax for Java interoperability.
    • Object references of type jobjectArray are supported for interoperation between COBOL and Java.
    • OO applications that begin with a COBOL main factory method can be invoked with the java command.
    • A new environment variable, COBJVMINITOPTIONS, is provided for initializing the Java virtual machine for OO applications that start with a COBOL program.
    • OO applications that begin with a COBOL program can, with some limitations, be bound as modules in a PDSE and run using batch JCL.
  • Unicode enhancement for working with Db2®: The code pages for host variables are handled implicitly when you use the Db2 integrated coprocessor. SQL DECLARE statements are necessary only for variables described with USAGE DISPLAY or USAGE DISPLAY-1 when COBOL and Db2 code pages do not match.