=========================================================================
M I C R O F O C U S C O B O L T O O L B O X
V3.1.39
Running Under The DG/UX Operating System Version 5.4.2
On The AViiON
=========================================================================
RELEASE NOTES
=============
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================
INTRODUCTION
ON-DISK DOCUMENTATION
MACHINE REQUIREMENTS
PRINTED DOCUMENTATION
EARLY RELEASE FEATURES
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
ERRORS FIXED
ENHANCEMENTS
RESTRICTIONS
KNOWN ERRORS
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
INTRODUCTION
============
These Release Notes (RNs) describe errors and restrictions found in the
software, and give other information not appropriate for the printed
manuals. Also, they introduce you to the on-disk documentation, which
supplements the manuals.
Additions and amendments to the manuals are given in a separate on-disk
document called the Documentation Update Notes (DUNs); its file-name
is dun.1.
Where an entry arose from a problem or enhancement request that has a
reference number, the reference number is given. This is to enable
Product Support to help you more quickly if you should need to call them.
These numbers are called Product Discrepancy Report (PDR) numbers. In
addition each group of entries has beneath its heading a note of the
build at which it first appeared in the Release Notes.
ON-DISK DOCUMENTATION
=====================
This release includes the following on-disk documents:
main.1 - Release Notes
dun.1 - Documentation Update Notes
changes.1 - Compatibility with Previous Releases
panrn.1 - Release Notes for Panels V2
The above documents are for Toolbox. You may notice that you also have
equivalent documents for the product Micro Focus COBOL, on which Toolbox
is based. Except for the section "Description of Files" in the Product
Contents Checklist, you need not read those, as the material is also in
the Toolbox documents.
The following on-disk documents should be regarded as additional
chapters, or additions to chapters, in your COBOL System Reference or
COBOL User Guide:
early.1 - Early Release Features
rte.1 - COBOL Run-Time System
The following on-disk documents should be regarded as additional
chapters, or additions to chapters, in your Toolbox Operating Guide:
osxsrvr.1 - Operating System Extensions (Server)
osxclnt.1 - Operating System Extensions (Client)
coopanim.1 - The Cooperative Animation Demonstration
coopdemo.1 - The Cooperative Processing Demonstration Programs
Early Release features are documented in on-disk documents as listed in
the on-disk document early.1.
Corrections and additions too small for separate on-disk documents are
given in the DUNs.
MACHINE REQUIREMENTS
====================
o The DG/UX operating system Version 5.4.2
o AViiON
o The system utilities ar r, nm, ld, cc, as,
which are required by the various phases of cob to support
full Micro Focus COBOL functionality
o To run successfully, your Micro Focus COBOL System requires a minimum
of 5 Mbytes of temporary disk space for a single user. For any
additional users, you should increase the disk space by the combined
size of the $COBDIR/coblib/libcobol.a file and the COBOL source
file for each user.
The amount of temporary disk space that each user requires can
increase significantly when SORT or MERGE operations are performed,
as these features can create temporary work files related to the size
of the files being sorted or merged.
Temporary work files are put in the directory specified by the
system-defined "TMPDIR" environment variable. If TMPDIR is not set,
the system default temporary directory will be used instead (as
defined by the value of "P_tmpdir" in stdio.h).
PRINTED DOCUMENTATION
=====================
Micro Focus COBOL Toolbox V3.1 has the following printed manuals:
o Getting Started with Toolbox (Issue 2, April 1993)
o Language Reference (Issue 13, April 1993)
o COBOL System Reference (Issue 1, April 1993)
o COBOL User Guide (Issue 1, April 1993)
o Error Messages (Issue 9, April 1993)
o COBOL Pocket Guide (Issue 6, April 1993)
o Compatibility Guide (Issue 3, April 1993)
o Toolbox Operating Guide (Issue 2, April 1993)
o Master Index (Issue 2, April 1993)
EARLY RELEASE FEATURES
======================
Early Release features are selected features, being developed for future
Micro Focus products, which have reached a sufficiently advanced stage to
allow us to make them available to you for you to investigate. We believe
they will be of great interest and value to you in their current form.
See the on-disk document early.1 for details of these components and for
further details of Micro Focus's Early Release policy.
ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
=====================
The following information is newly documented at this release.
Recompiling Sources
----------V3.1.39--
o The .int and .gnt code produced by Micro Focus products earlier than
release V3.0 (for example COBOL/2 V1.3) cannot be run using this
product. Your source files will first need to be recompiled. If they
are not, run-time error 165 ("Version number incompatibility") is
returned.
Documented at V3.1.35
=====================
The following information, documented at V3.1.35, still applies.
None.
ERRORS FIXED
============
The following errors are fixed in this release.
Advanced Animator - Errors Fixed
-----------------------V3.1.39--
Where appropriate, these entries also apply to Base Animator.
o If you set a Breakpoint Do in a main program, then escaped from
Animator while in a subprogram, the session would hang.
o The Clear function did not work when you were querying a
Linkage Section item that was bigger
than the Working-Storage Section,
o (This would only affect you when using an add-on product.)
When using Animator with the Micro Focus CICS Option for Workbench
you could erroneously receive the message "Fatal Error on CBCLI
File" when exiting from the Animator.
Co-Writer Builder - Errors Fixed
-----------------------V3.1.39--
o Some large Co-Writer V2.5 Dictionaries fail to upgrade automatically
when loaded in Co-Writer V3.1.
o Generating a new Dictionary from a program containing a group item
with an OCCURS DEPENDING clause produced incorrect details for that
item's subordinate items.
Co-Writer Designer - Errors Fixed
------------------------V3.1.39--
o Totalling a derived, sorted field gave incorrect results.
o If a report contained more than one selection criterion, with the
second being numeric, the first criterion was ignored unless the
cursor was positioned on that first field.
COBOL Editor - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.39--
o When doing a global Search and Replace on a file containing a single
blank line, searching for "." or " ", the editor reported file
status 9/002 ("File not open when access attempted") and crashed.
o When running in 132 column mode, part of the editor's border
disappeared when you clicked on the upper right-hand corner of a
window with the mouse.
o When you invoked the editor using the command:
wb edit
the editor sometimes tried to load a file with a garbage file-name.
o The editor loaded the wrong version of a COPY-file if you were using
sources located on a network server and had changes to the COPY-file
stored on a local drive. The editor now looks on the current drive as
well as the network server drive and COBCPY.
Compiler (General) - Errors Fixed
------------------------V3.1.39--
o When the compiler created its temporary files (CBCLInn.TMP) it did
not create them in the directory pointed to by the TMP environment
variable.
o If the INT compiler directive specified a directory rather than a
file, for example INT(C:\), the compiler could not do a single step
compilation to native code.
Compiler (Syntax Check Phase) - Errors Fixed
-----------------------------------V3.1.39--
o WRITE AFTER POSITIONING was being allowed for files that were not
RECORD SEQUENTIAL.
o Error message 207 ("FD, CD or SD qualification syntax error") was
produced when two FDs used the same record-name in their DATA RECORDS
ARE clauses.
o If you checked with CHARSET(EBCDIC) and used the verb EXHIBIT NAMED
literal, the literal was converted incorrectly to EBCDIC.
o If there many group items within group items in the Screen Section,
a protection violation resulted.
o If the FLAG(VSC2) was set and your program contained data items
containing all double byte characters, you received error message
619 ("User-name mixes single byte and double byte characters").
o When a COPY statement specified a file name longer than 50
characters, you got run-time error 114 ("Attempt to access item
beyond bounds of memory").
o If the SELECT statement for a report file was not last in the
File-Control paragraph, the output file created was one long line.
o With FLAG(VSC2) set, you got an incorrect flag message on EXIT
statement when it was not the only statement in a paragraph.
o With ODOSLIDE set, if you redefined an OCCURS DEPENDING item that did
not slide and the redefining item was a group item, its subordinate
items were treated as sliding.
o COPY REPLACING with free format source did not work. The Compiler
inserted "......" into columns 1 to 6, which then got compiled. This
produced error message 0003 ("Illegal format: Literal").
o The Compiler hung when it could not find the closing quotation mark
of a literal and you were compiling with SOURCEFORMAT(FREE) set.
o Table SORT could not cope with numeric-edited keys. No bound checking
was done if a table contained an OCCURS DEPENDING ON clause, so if
the DEPENDING ON item was out of range, a trap could occur.
o The VSC2 extension allowing the imperative statement to be omitted
after WHEN in a SEARCH statement was allowed in the wrong
circumstances. It was allowed under Format 1; it was not allowed if
there was a period instead of END-SEARCH; it was allowed for AT END.
o The PROMPT clause without the CHARACTER IS caused error message 0014
("Invalid operand error ").
o If there were continuation characters after a comment line in a COPY
file, the program did not compile correctly.
o If you used DISPLAY WITH SIZE identifier, and the identifier was
defined after an external data item, this caused illegal intermediate
code.
o If a nested program contained more than 16K of data in the VALUE
clauses you got error message 014 ("Too many IF levels") when
generating.
o You can now use an environment variable in the INT directive
to specify the path-name for the intermediate code file.
-Enhancment
o If a source file containing several programs was compiled with XREF
and LIST(), the headings of the second and subsequent program
listings had the word "DATA" on the right-hand side.
o Moves of floating point items to numeric items were not rounded
when the FP-ROUNDING directive was specified.
o A Report Writer program with a SOURCE data item that was sliding
(that is, appeared in a record after an item with an OCCURS DEPENDING
clause, when ODOSLIDE was set) created illegal intermediate code.
o If you specified ODOSLIDE and used CALL subprogram USING identifier,
where the identifier was a sliding item, you got illegal intermediate
code.
o If you used the SYSIN and CHARSET(EBCDIC) directives together,
certain DISPLAY statements produced corrupt code. This would result
in a generator error 013 ("Illegal int code", or a protection
violation if you animated.
o The special SQL data item MFSQLMESSAGETEXT was not always correctly
updated.
o If you specified an SQL sourcefile with an environment variable in
its name and you requested an SQL bind file without explicitly
specifying a name (that is, you specified SQLBIND() ), an SQL error
was produced.
o With FLAG(OSVS) and FLAGAS(S) set, if an FD contained more than one
data item with OCCURS DEPENDING clauses, you got error message 586
("Smallest record size > minimum in RECORD clause").
File Handler - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.39--
o A backslash (\) was not allowed before an environment variable
containing a backslash.
o In some circumstances Rebuild would not correctly rebuild
IDXFORMAT"4" files.
o A left parenthesis "(" was not allowed as part of file-name; run-time
error 9/4 was returned.
Fileshare Version 2 - Errors Fixed
-------------------------V3.1.39--
o Fileshare V2 applications received a 9/27 file status on any file
which you tried to access in an exit procedure after a STOP RUN.
Fileshare View and Administration Tool (Fsview) - Errors Fixed
-----------------------------------------------------V3.1.39--
o You could not run Fsview for Motif (fsviewmot) on UNIX unless the
current directory was $COBDIR or the environment COBDATA was set to
$COBDIR.
Menu Handler - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.39--
o You could not set the file-name for the logging facility correctly.
On-Line Help Builder - Errors Fixed
--------------------------V3.1.39--
o The file created as a result of the /define directive did not
show external contexts.
Panels Version 2 (Motif) - Errors Fixed
------------------------------V3.1.39--
o The bound checking of the Pf-Scroll-Panel function was incorrect.
resulting in too many characters being displayed.
o Panels V2 for Motif only recognized simple ASCII characters input
from the keyboard. This has been corrected to deal with any
character in the ISO Latin 1 standard character set.
o The function Pf-Get-Selected-List-Box-Item did not return
the correct item position.
Running - Errors Fixed
-------------V3.1.39--
o Reading large records from STDIN could sometimes cause memory
corruption.
o Opcode x"0006" calls sometimes gave incorrect results for the C-ISAM
file format.
o The run-time switch B1, supported on DOS, Windows and OS/2, was not
supported on UNIX.
o When using the tuneable same_proc_excl_detection, files could not be
shared from within a run unit.
o A status code indicating "end of file" was incorrectly returned when
reading from both a pipe and a line sequential file from the same
program.
o Incorrect key information was returned from calls of opcode x"0006"
for the C-ISAM file format.
Sorting - Errors Fixed
-------------V3.1.39--
o MFSORT did not always default to sequential file organization.
o MFSORT did not handle UNIX PATHS.
Added at V3.1.35
================
The following fixes, made at V3.1.35, are also in this release.
Advanced Animator - Errors Fixed
-----------------------V3.1.35--
Where appropriate, these entries also apply to Base Animator.
o When using Do, if you missed the end quote from a literal, you got
the the error message "Undefined Error. Contact technical support".
This has been corrected so that you now get "Illegal format :
Literal".
o Some examples of COPY REPLACING caused the Step command to take you
to the wrong line in the source.
o Environment Until did not work across subprograms.
o If you repeatedly pressed Escape to escape from the Alter Path menu,
you could use Animator functions on the screen full of sequence
numbers produced.
o If you did not put a trailing "\" on the path you specified on the
Alter Path menu, the path was not found.
o If you did a Query Repeat after deleting monitor, the monitor that
appeared replaced an existing monitor instead of appearing as an
additional monitor.
o Using the mouse from the Structure Print menu corrupted the screen.
Co-Writer Builder - Errors Fixed
-----------------------V3.1.35--
o After upgrading a Co-Writer Data Dictionary from V2.5 to V3.0, you
may have trouble performing the Extract operation. The original V2.5
Data Dictionary should be re-loaded into Co-Writer Builder to
alleviate the problem.
Co-Writer Reporter - Errors Fixed
------------------------V3.1.35--
o Multiple selection criteria gave unpredictable results if the entry
field cursor was not on the first line.
COBOL Editor - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.35--
o The last line on the display became corrupted if a Find or Replace
operation was started after moving the cursor from its original
location using F2=set.
Compiler (Syntax Check Phase) - Errors Fixed
-----------------------------------V3.1.35--
o The compiler erroneously reported an error for key length in an FD
when there was a 78 level specified in the FD area.
o In an ANSI ACCEPT into a PIC G or PIC N data item, the data item was
not padded with the DBSPACE character when the input was shorter than
the target item.
o Under certain conditions such when you had just entered the menu
system, the COBOL Editor failed to load the COBOL source to show
error lines after syntax errors were detected.
o UNSTRING did not work properly when acting on group items with OCCURS
DEPENDING clauses.
o A comment appearing on the line after word that was to be replaced
(as part of COPY REPLACING or REPLACE) caused compiler error
messages.
o The compiler did not warn against incorrect use of continuation
characters in conditional compilation.
o The compiler gave error S-4 ("Illegal character") when identifiers
were started and delimited by shift-out and shift-in characters.
o The compiler did not warn about code made unreachable with the
NEXT SENTENCE phrase.
o Some examples of COPY REPLACING did not work.
o If you had an NCHAR literal which was a condition-name associated
with a alphanumeric item, testing the condition gave FALSE when it
should have given TRUE.
File Handler - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.35--
o When reading variable length records, data in memory beyond the end
of the current record was overwritten.
o If 19 files were open, opening a nonexistent 20th file I-O gave a
status of 0/0 instead of 0/5.
o Rolling back a DELETE on an indexed file using Fileshare V2
could give a protection violation.
o Rolling back a WRITE on IDXFORMAT"4" files didn't work correctly with
Fileshare V2.
o Single key variable-length indexed files were corrupted if you did
two REWRITEs in succession, each of which made a record smaller.
o Single key variable-length indexed files were corrupted if you
DELETEd a record which had previously been made smaller by a REWRITE.
o No record was returned if EXTFHBUF was set to 65521 or more.
GNT Analyzer - Errors Fixed
------------------V3.1.35--
o The results summary did not start on a new line.
o The .cfg file was always folded to upper case; this has been changed
so that it is left in the original case.
ENHANCEMENTS
============
Each enhancement listed in this section is documented in further detail
either in the Documentation Update Notes or in the section "Supplementary
Information" in this document.
The following enhancements are made in this release.
Animator - Enhancements
--------------V3.1.39--
o When you are executing your program using Animator's Zoom command,
your application may not recognize the function keys. This is because
on some keyboards the function keys send sequences beginning with the
Escape character, which by default the Zoom command takes as the
interrupt character.
To prevent this, you can set a tuneable in $COBDIR/cobconfig, or the
file pointed to by $COBCONFIG. Its name is animator_interrupt_char.
It is a numeric tuneable which takes the values 0 to 255.
The value represents the code generated by the keyboard for the key
to use to interrupt Animator's Zoom and Go operations. The default is
27 (Escape). We suggest choosing 3, which corresponds to Ctrl/C:
set animator_interrupt_char=3
The range of this tuneable means you can assign a normal text key as
the interrupt character; however, if you do you can no longer use
that key to enter its normal character.
COBOL Editor - Enhancements
------------------V3.1.39--
o The buffers associated with the LANG configuration entries have
been increased to a maximum of 65 bytes, meaning that full path
names can be included when specifying a USE() directive for a
LANG entry.
Integrated Preprocessor Support - Enhancements
-------------------------------------V3.1.39--
o A preprocessor can now convert a source line (for example, an EXEC
statement as used in CICS) into a COPY statement, and then expand it.
Previously a preprocessor could do one or the other, but not both.
Added at V3.1.35
================
The following enhancements, made at V3.1.35, are also in this release.
Fileshare Version 2 - Enhancements
-------------------------V3.1.35--
o On a CLOSE, a 9/100 status is returned only if a file in a
transaction has been updated. This means a file opened INPUT, or one
opened I-O that has not had any WRITEs, REWRITEs or DELETEs done on
it, can be closed without your first issuing a COMMIT or ROLLBACK.
RESTRICTIONS
============
The following restrictions are newly documented in this release.
Compiler (Checker phase) - Restrictions
---------------------------------------
o If you specify group item in the Screen Section with any LINE or
COLUMN clause (at any level of the hierarchy), then you must also
specify at least one elementary item with a VALUE clause or a
USING/FROM/TO clause. If you violate this rule, your program may
hang at run-time. It is Micro Focus' intention that a future release
of the Language Reference will document this requirement and that a
future release of the Checker software will detect such syntax and
issue an error. Until this software detection is available, each
programmer should manually insure that they have not violated this
rule.
File Handling - Restrictions
-------------------V3.1.39--
o If a program uses ADIS ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements, you cannot
redirect its input from a file other than a terminal. For example,
the following redirection is legal:
cobrun prog < `tty` > `tty`
whereas redirecting the input from an ordinary file or the null file
(/etc/null) is not legal and could result in a run-time error.
Screens - Restrictions
-------------V3.1.39--
o If you use a .srn file that was created using the monochrome version
of Screens with the color version, the colors may be wrong.
Documented at V3.1.35
=====================
The following restrictions, documented at V3.1.35, are also in this
release.
None.
Documented at V3.1.31
=====================
The following restrictions, documented at V3.1.31, are also in this
release.
Compiler (Generate phase) - Restrictions
-------------------------------V3.1.31--
o Technical Committee X3J4 has recognized that the COBOL standard is
unclear about the meaning of ordinal numbers when specifying an
ALPHABET-NAME (other than NATIVE) in the SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause
of the SPECIAL-NAMES paragraph. Therefore, cross-system or upward
compatible results cannot be guaranteed.
Micro Focus recommends that you do not use the ALPHABET-NAME option
in the SYMBOLIC CHARACTERS clause if ordinal numbers are used.
Instead, you should either use literals or reference the ordinal
numbers from the native collating sequence.
o The behavior of the CANCEL statement, when it refers to an entry
point within a program, is undefined. Therefore the behavior of a
program that uses this syntax, and any program which contains an
entry point which has been cancelled, is unpredictable.
File Handling - Restrictions
-------------------V3.1.31--
o When migrating existing applications from early versions of COBOL, it
may be necessary to rebuild indexed files. RTS error 114 may occur if
this is not done. See your COBOL System Reference for information on
how to do this.
o The File Handler utilities do not support NLS files on the SCO UNIX
and AIX operating systems.
o In validating an indexed file, Fhvalidate checks that each key in the
index matches the key field in the corresponding data record. It does
not check that every record in the data file has a key in the index.
o If the records in a file are compressed (with the DATACOMPRESS
directive) or the file is variable format, Fhinfo always returns -1
as the number of records in the file.
o Programs compiled with the OSVS, VSC2, DOSVS or COBOL370 directive,
when opening a variable-length file, do not perform minimum record
length checking. This is true when using ISAM files or relative
or sequential files using Extfh.
Sample Programs - Restrictions
---------------------V3.1.31--
o The p2hello1.cbl demonstration program listed in the appendix "Sample
Programs" in your Toolbox Operating Guide is only available on
environments that support Panels Version 2 (currently SCO and AIX).
Windowing Syntax - Restrictions
----------------------V3.1.31--
o If you COPY a file into a program, the windowing subsystem will not
use the OSEXT directive or append the default extension
.cbl onto the file. This means that the file-name in your program
must be identical to the file-name on the disk in order for the COPY
to be successful.
o The windowing subsystem does not support the COBCPY environment
variable to locate COPY files. You should link your COPY files to the
current directory.
KNOWN ERRORS
============
The following known errors are newly documented in this release.
Fileshare Version 2 - Known Errors
-------------------------V3.1.39--
o The Fileshare Installation Utility displays the message "Fileshare
Installation completed" even if the installation has not been
successful. If any error messages were displayed during the use of
this utility, the database reference file will not have been set up
correctly.
Documented at V3.1.35
=====================
The following errors, documented at V3.1.35, are also in this release.
None.
Documented at V3.1.31
=====================
The following errors, documented at V3.1.31, are also in this release.
Animator - Known Errors
--------------V3.1.31--
o If Animator encounters an incompatible .idy file, it causes a
run-time error 114 ("Attempt to access item beyond bounds of
memory").
COBOL Editor - Known Errors
------------------V3.1.31--
o When the COBOL Editor is reentered after compilation because a
procedure-name has been found to be undeclared, the editor may be
positioned at a garbage file-name, both initially and if you locate
to the error using the error message functions.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
=========================
The following information is newly documented at this release.
Application Design - Supplementary Information
-------------------------------------V3.1.39--
o If a procedure pointer is set (using the SET statement) to point to a
program, and you then use it to call the program after that program
has been cancelled, results are unpredictable.
Installing - Supplementary Information
-----------------------------V3.1.39--
o All the COBOL system tools (such as the Compiler and the Generator)
are in one directory. The default path of this directory is
/opt/lib/cobol, but you can set the environment variable COBDIR to
specify a different path.
Sample Programs - Supplementary Information
----------------------------------V3.1.39--
o Before using any of the sample programs located in the $COBDIR/demo
directory, be sure to copy them to your own work directory.
Documented at V3.1.35
=====================
The following information, documented at V3.1.35, still applies.
None.
Documented at V3.1.31
=====================
The following information, documented at V3.1.31, still applies.
General - Supplementary Information
--------------------------V3.1.31--
o This release of Micro Focus software carries an identification code;
you should always quote this number when contacting Micro Focus for
any reason concerning this product. To obtain this number you should
enter either:
cat $COBDIR/cobver <enter>
or:
cob -V <enter>
which will display the file, and on the second line you will see:
PRN=xxxxxxxx
where "xxxxxxxx" is the number you should quote.
o To avoid the possibility of clashes between user-defined names and
Micro Focus COBOL symbol names, you should not start any
program-names or entry-point names with the prefixes mF_, mFt_, cob
or CBL_.
Animating - Supplementary Information
----------------------------V3.1.31--
o When you animate a program which has either been compiled with the RM
directive or the alternate file status table has been selected at
Run-Time, and in both cases no file status bytes have been defined, a
Run-Time System (RTS) error returned as a result of a file I-O error
will be the Micro Focus error. If you wish to determine the status
error applicable to the directives you have set, you must use the
Query command on the file in which the error occurred to obtain the
file status returned.
Application Design - Supplementary Information
-------------------------------------V3.1.31--
o When building an executable file which does not require any variable
length records, we recommend that you explicitly exclude the Micro
Focus variable record file handler, mFFH. You do this by adding:
-X mFFH
to your cob command line. For simple programs without any dynamic
loading, this should result in smaller executable files. If you
exclude mFFH, but a variable length record file operation is
subsequently performed at run time, you will receive run-time system
error:
107 Operation not implemented in this Run-Time System
o You must not use the following as program-names:
ad, al, ar, as, at,
du, dv, dx, dy, dz,
n1, n2, n3,
or any name beginning "cg".
o If you try to move a nonnumeric literal to a numeric elementary item,
the Compiler will actually move zeros unless you specify the RM
Compiler directive. This also happens if you try to move one of the
nonnumeric figurative constants SPACE, LOW-VALUES or HIGH-VALUES to a
numeric elementary item.
o When you do not specify a LOCK MODE IS clause for file locking,
the default locking is used. Files opened for INPUT are
shareable, files opened for OUTPUT, I-O or EXTEND are exclusive. Note
that although the default locking for relative and indexed
sequential files opened EXTEND is exclusive, this may change in
future releases of the Micro Focus COBOL product. Thus we recommend
that you explicitly specify "exclusive" within your programs for
those files which you wish to open EXTEND.
o When you include variable length syntax in your source code, it will
have no effect on line sequential files.
o The Micro Focus COBOL run-time system directly controls the terminal
to which it is attached; that is, it deals with optimizing the screen
output and handling keyboard input. Therefore, you should always
perform screen I-O using the run-time system via the ACCEPT/DISPLAY
syntax, or if using C, via the cobprintf family of calls. You should
not attempt to read or write directly to the terminal. The use of
highlighting, cursor positioning and other such terminal attributes
can be handled using the appropriate COBOL syntax. See your Language
Reference for further details.
o When you compile a program containing a PROGRAM-ID clause with the
OSVS directive set, the Compiler will ignore any information
following this clause until it reaches a syntactically correct
division heading. If you have misspelled the division heading
following the PROGRAM-ID clause, the Compiler will continue to ignore
any information following this heading until it reaches the next
correctly spelled division heading.
o The limits specified in the chapter "System Limits and Programming
Restrictions" in your COBOL System Reference are set by your Micro
Focus COBOL software. However, these limits may be altered by other
limits set by your operating system. For example, the operating
system limit for the maximum number of files that can be open
simultaneously may be different from the limit set by Micro Focus
because of the maximum number of locks allowed per process, or the
maximum number of open files allowed per process. Therefore, if the
number of files allowed system-wide was large, but the number of
locks allowed was much smaller, then the limit on the number of locks
would be the limiting factor on the number files COBOL could OPEN.
Configuration - Supplementary Information
--------------------------------V3.1.31--
o The $COBDIR/src/mfisamv4 directory contains a version of the Micro
Focus fixed record length ISAM file handler that is based on Informix
C-ISAM (c) v4.10. You can rebuild your COBOL run-time system to use
this file handler by default. This will enable ISAM files created by
your COBOL product to be moved between COBOL and non-COBOL
applications that use Informix C-ISAM as their data storage
mechanism.
To rebuild your COBOL run-time system, enter:
mkrts mfisam4.o
This will produce an executable rts32 that you should copy to your
COBOL system directory.
Note: ISAM files created by this rebuilt COBOL run-time system
cannot be manipulated by the File Handler utilities provided
as part of your COBOL system.
o This release of Toolbox includes a product version identification
file called "toolboxver". It is located in the $COBDIR directory. To
access this file, you type:
cat $COBDIR/toolboxver
When you do, you will find a two line version identification.
You should always quote these numbers when contacting your support
representative for any reason concerning this product.
o Your COBOL System Reference indicates that certain features of the
Micro Focus COBOL system are available only on certain types of
implementation. $COBDIR/cobver contains a Product Type Identifier
(PTI) field which identifies the type of your particular
implementation. This can be any of the following:
Kanji-EUC Your product supports Kanji using EUC coding
Kanji-SHIFTJIS Your product supports Kanji using Shift JIS coding
NLS Your product includes Native Language Support
features
FED Your product supports TI's FED features
If a PTI is shown in $COBDIR/cobver, your particular implementation
supports those features which your COBOL System Reference identifies
as supported by that type of implementation. The PTI follows the PRN,
and if more than one PTI applies to your implementation, each will
appear on a separate line.
o Your Micro Focus COBOL software is supplied already configured to run
on your machine. Full details on how you can change the default
configuration and how you can control various machine independent
features, such as the message texts output by the Micro Focus COBOL
system, are given in your COBOL System Reference. However, we
recommend that only those users with system administrator status
attempt to alter the Micro Focus COBOL system's default configuration
in any way.
Conversion Series 3 - Supplementary Information
--------------------------------------V3.1.31--
o Behavior in truncation of data moved to COMP-6 items differs between
Micro Focus COBOL and RM/COBOL. In Micro Focus COBOL, should
truncation occur when you move data into a COMP-6 item, the
truncation will occur according to the rules for moves to Micro Focus
COBOL COMP fields.
Conversion Series 5 - Supplementary Information
--------------------------------------V3.1.31--
o Moving LOW-VALUES to a numeric data item is not a valid operation on
the Micro Focus COBOL system. If your program attempts to do this
ZERO is moved instead.
o When running convert5, alphanumeric IDENTIFIER values must be
enclosed within quotation marks.
File Handling - Supplementary Information
--------------------------------V3.1.31--
o If you receive an undocumented error during a file operation, you
must recode your application so that it uses file status bytes. You
must then check the file status bytes for the exact error.
Printing - Supplementary Information
---------------------------V3.1.31--
o ASSIGN TO PRINTER does not send output to a printer; it sends it to
LPT1 instead. In order to send output to a physical printer you must
use the dd_LPT1 environment variable. If your system supports the lp
printer spooler you should use:
dd_LPT1=">lp";export dd_LPT1
Screen Attributes - Supplementary Information
------------------------------------V3.1.31--
If you want to change the attributes used on the screen by the Animator
and COBOL Editor you can edit the system configuration file
MFTOOLS.CFG.
You can have a mixture of color and monochrome attribute specifications
in your configuration file. Only those relevant to the screen type of the
machine you are running on will have any effect during the initialization
phase.
Color Screen:
There are 16 system attributes which can be defined in the configuration
file. The format of an entry in this file for an attribute specification
for a color screen is:
attribute-name: foreground ON background [BLINK]
For example,
SYS-ATT-11: Brown ON Black
where words can be in mixed case. The naming convention is to use the
"system attribute name" where each attribute is termed SYS-ATT-n where n
is a number between 1 and 16. These names correspond to the names used on
the menu when you are setting colors as follows:
SYS-ATT-1 - reserved
SYS-ATT-2 - reserved
SYS-ATT-3 - Menu-text
SYS-ATT-4 - Key-tops
SYS-ATT-5 - Tell-tales
SYS-ATT-6 - Lock-on
SYS-ATT-7 - Animated-text
SYS-ATT-8 - Error-messages
SYS-ATT-9 - reserved
SYS-ATT-10 - Margins
SYS-ATT-11 - Normal-text
SYS-ATT-12 - Current-line
SYS-ATT-13 - reserved
SYS-ATT-14 - reserved
SYS-ATT-15 - reserved
SYS-ATT-16 - reserved
The following colors can be used for either foreground or background:
BLACK
BLUE
GREEN
CYAN
RED
MAGENTA
BROWN
LIGHT-GREY
and the following colors can be used in addition for foreground only:
DARK-GREY
LIGHT-BLUE
LIGHT-GREEN
LIGHT-CYAN
LIGHT-RED
LIGHT-MAGENTA
YELLOW
WHITE
The colors can be entered in mixed case, but must be spelled as above for
the system to be correctly colorized.
You can also use the attribute BLINK on a color terminal. If included, it
will cause any text defined in the particular attribute to flash on and
off. Note that on a windowing environment BLINK may not work.
Monochrome Screen:
The format of an attribute specification for a mono screen is:
attribute-name<D>: {NORMAL } [HIGHLIGHT] [BLINK]
{INVISIBLE }
{REVERSE-VIDEO}
For example:
SYS-ATT-08: NORMAL HIGHLIGHT
The following attributes can be specified for a monochrome screen:
NORMAL
UNDERLINE
REVERSE-VIDEO
BLINK
HIGHLIGHT
INVISIBLE
BLINK and HIGHLIGHT are optional and may be included together or
separately.
X/OPEN Portability - Supplementary Information
-------------------------------------V3.1.31--
o When invoking COBOL from C in conjunction with the X/Open syntax
ACCEPT FROM ARGUMENT-VALUE, argc and argv will not be passed from the
command line to the COBOL program.
=========================================================================
Micro Focus and Animator are registered trademarks of Micro Focus
Limited.
Micro Focus COBOL, Micro Focus COBOL Toolbox, Operating System
Extensions, FORMS-2, Micro Focus COBOL/2, VS COBOL, and LEVEL II COBOL/ET
are trademarks of Micro Focus Limited.
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines
Corporation.
SCO is a trademark of The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Informix is a registered trademark of Informix Software, Inc.
C-ISAM is a trademark of Informix Software, Inc.
RM/COBOL is a registered trademark of Ryan-McFarland Corporation.
X/Open is a trademark of the X/Open Company Limited.
UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
=========================================================================
@(#)Vrn/main.1/3.1.03/15Jul93/nrV
Copyright (C) 1992-93 Micro Focus Limited