Summary of changes
This section
lists the major changes that have been made to this document for Enterprise COBOL Version
6 Release 2 and Version 6 Release 2 with PTFs installed
. The
changes that are described in this information have an associated
cross-reference for your convenience.
The latest technical
changes are marked within >| and |< in the HTML version, or marked
by vertical bars (|) in the left margin in the PDF version.

Version 6 Release 2 with PTFs installed
New and changed compiler options
- The following compiler options are new:
- PI91584:
COPYLOC
: The newCOPYLOC
compiler option can be used to add either aPDSE
(orPDS
) dataset or z/OS® UNIX directory as an additional location to be searched for copy members during the library phase. (COPYLOC) - PH05855:
INITIAL
: The newINITIAL
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 theIS INITIAL
clause to thePROGRAM-ID
paragraph, and without having to use dynamicCALL
andCANCEL
statements. (INITIAL)
- PI91584:
- The following compiler options are modified:
- PI90571:
ZONEDATA
: TheZONEDATA
option is updated to affect the behaviour ofMOVE
statements, comparisons, and computations forUSAGE DISPLAY
orPACKED-DECIMAL
data items that could contain invalid digits, an invalid sign code, or invalid zone bits. (ZONEDATA) - PI91585:
RULES
: New suboptionsOMITODOMIN | NOOMITODOMIN
are added to theRULES
option to control whether the compiler will issue warning messages for anyOCCURS DEPENDING ON
clauses that are specified without integer-1 (the minimum number of occurrences). (RULES) - PI91586:
RULES
: New suboptionsUNREF | NOUNREFALL | NOUNREFSOURCE
are added to theRULES
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
). (RULES) - PI96135:
NUMCHECK(PAC)
: For packed decimal (COMP-3
) data items that have an even number of digits, the unused bits are checked for zeros. (NUMCHECK) - PI98480:
NUMCHECK(ZON)
: New suboptionsALPHNUM | NOALPHNUM
are added to theNUMCHECK(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. (NUMCHECK) - PH04369:
RULES(NOEVENPACK)
will not issue messages for even-digit PACKED-DECIMAL data items whose names start with DFH, DSN, EYU or SQL, that is, data items generated for/by CICS and Db2. (RULES) - PH04485:
TEST
: New suboptionsDSNAME | NODSNAME
are added to theTEST|NOTEST(SEPARATE)
option to control whether the external file name, which is theSYSDEBUG
dataset name used during compilation, will or will not be stored in the object program. (TEST) - PH08642:
NUMCHECK
: Redundant checks previously added by theNUMCHECK
option have been removed, improving performance, and some checks can be done at compile time. SpecifyingNUMCHECK
may also cause the compiler to produce some messages at compile time instead of at runtime. (NUMCHECK) - PH09225:
INITCHECK
: TheINITCHECK
option can be specified withOPTIMIZE(0)
. (INITCHECK) - PH11667:
NUMCHECK(BIN)
:NUMCHECK(BIN)
will check for binary data items (COMP
,COMP-4
, andUSAGE BINARY
) even whenTRUNC(BIN)
is in effect. (NUMCHECK)
- PI90571:
IBM-supplied CICS reserved-word table changes
- PI91589: New COBOL words are added to the IBM-supplied CICS® reserved-word table. (CICS reserved-word table)
Statement changes
- PI95081: A new
LOC(24|31)
phrase is added to theALLOCATE
statement to control the location of dynamic storage that is acquired, which overrides the influence of theDATA
compiler option. (Storage and its addressability)
Intrinsic function enhancements
- PI97434: Add support for processing national data items with the
following intrinsic functions:
- REVERSE
- ULENGTH
- UPOS
- USUBSTR
- UWIDTH
If the updated intrinsic functions (REVERSE, ULENGTH, UPOS, USUBSTR, UWIDTH) in the May compiler PTFs (UI56120, UI56121, UI56122) are used, then the May Runtime PTF UI56043(V2R1)/UI56042(V2R2)/UI55861(V2R3) must also be applied to Language Environment on all systems where these programs are linked or run.
- PI99703:
- The following intrinsic functions are added as IBM extensions:
- BIT-OF
- HEX-OF
- The following intrinsic functions are added as part of the 2014 COBOL Standard:
- E
- PI
- TRIM
- The following intrinsic functions are added as IBM extensions:
- PH02183:
- The following intrinsic functions are added as IBM extensions:
- BIT-TO-CHAR
- HEX-TO-CHAR
- The following intrinsic functions are added as part of the 2014 COBOL Standard:
- ABS
- BYTE-LENGTH (Finding the length of data items)
- EXP
- EXP10
- NUMVAL-F
- SIGN
- TEST-NUMVAL
- TEST-NUMVAL-C
- TEST-NUMVAL-F
- The following intrinsic functions are added as IBM extensions:


Version 6 Release 2
New, changed, and removed compiler options
- The following compiler options are new:
- The following compiler options are modified:
AFP
: The default value is changed toAFP(NOVOLATILE)
. (AFP)ARCH
: A new higher level ofARCH(12)
is accepted.ARCH(7)
is still the default. (ARCH)MAXPCF
: The default value is changed toMAXPCF(100000)
to reflect the increased capacity of the V6 compiler. (MAXPCF)NOSTGOPT
: In earlier versions, data items can get optimized withOPT(2)
even whenNOSTGOPT
was in effect.NOSTGOPT
was changed in this version so that no optimization of storage or data items occurs even withOPT(2)
. This is especially helpful forWORKING-STORAGE
eye-catchers. (STGOPT)SSRANGE
: New suboptionsMSG
andABD
are added to theSSRANGE
compiler option to control how the compiler checks reference modification lengths. (SSRANGE)TEST
: New suboptionsSEPARATE
andNOSEPARATE
are added to theTEST
compiler option to control program object size on disk while retaining debugging capability. In addition, new combinations of suboptions are supported in both theTEST
andNOTEST
compiler options, includingTEST(NODWARF)
,TEST(SEPARATE)
, andNOTEST(DWARF,SOURCE)
. (TEST)
- The following compiler option is removed:
ZONECHECK
is deprecated but is tolerated for compatibility, and it is replaced byNUMCHECK(ZON)
. (ZONECHECK)
New statements
- The new JSON PARSE statement converts JSON text to COBOL data formats. (Processing JSON input)
Debugging changes
TEST(SEPARATE)
supports generating the debug information into side files to control module size while retaining debugging capability. (TEST)
Listing changes
- Compiler diagnostic messages now appear at the end of the listing, as was the case in COBOL compilers before Enterprise COBOL V5.
- Addition of MD5 signature to program objects and debug data to allow matching of debug data with executables even if a program is recompiled. (Example: MD5 signature)
- Three new fields are added at the end of PPA4:
- Offset of the first user-defined data item in WORKING-STORAGE.
- Total length of user-defined data items in WORKING-STORAGE.
- Bit to indicate whether there are EXTERNAL data items.
Usability enhancements
- Improves usability of the compiler in the z/OS UNIX System Services environment with addition of
help information for the
cob2
compiler invocation command. (cob2 syntax and options)
