Whether you use AIX as a development and test environment or redeploy mission-critical applications in a client/server environment, IBM COBOL for AIX provides a set of features that you can use to upgrade your existing COBOL applications in new endeavors, capitalizing on existing investments.
Object-oriented COBOL syntax for Java interoperability
COBOL for AIX provides object-oriented syntax to facilitate the interoperation of COBOL and Java programs. Support is based upon the facilities of the Java Native Interface, which is the primary means provided by Java for interoperation with non-Java programs. However, the Java Native Interface is designed for use with C and C++, and is difficult to use directly from COBOL. The object-oriented capabilities in COBOL for AIX enable programmers to write COBOL code that:
- Creates object instances of classes that are written in Java or COBOL
- Invokes methods on Java or COBOL objects
- Defines classes with methods written in COBOL
Extensible Markup Language (XML) support
COBOL for AIX is designed to introduce basic XML capability to COBOL. The support includes a new XML PARSE verb, a high-speed XML parser, and an XML GENERATE verb.
Support for DB2 Universal Database, Version 8
COBOL for AIX has been enhanced to exploit the new features of DB2 Universal Database. Using the DB2 coprocessor support (SQL compiler option), developers can now use DB2 SQL features such as:
- Stand-alone SQLCODE and SQLSTATE variables
- Raised limits on SQL literals, database name, user ID, password, package name, and bind file name
- Support for SQL BIGINT data type
Unicode support
A new national data type, national literals, intrinsic functions, and a compiler option provide basic support for Unicode. COBOL source programs can be encoded in an ASCII or EUC code page, or in UTF-8. COBOL for AIX supports Unicode data at run time using UTF-16 or UTF-8. The semantics of most COBOL language elements with implicit or explicit conversion, collation, or casing operations can be locale sensitive, depending on compiler options specified.
COBOL Unicode enhancements also provide basic support for the Chinese character standard GB18030.
Enhanced 31-digit decimal data support
Support for decimal data is enhanced by raising the maximum precision from 18 to 31 digits and providing an extended-precision mode for intermediate result calculations in arithmetic statements. The new support is controlled by a new compiler option, ARITH.
Improved performance for Encina structured file server (SFS) files
COBOL for AIX offers improved performance for applications that access SFS files by providing environment variables that enable client-side caching and reduce the frequency of saving changes to SFS files. Using these environment variables can reduce the number of remote procedure calls (RPCs), thus causing the application to run faster.
Distributed debugger
Using the new distributed debugger that is included with COBOL for AIX, programmers can find problems in a program easily and efficiently, and understand a program. Because programmers can control the program being debugged, they can initiate a trace through the flow of program execution and, at any desired point, stop and examine the program's internal state by monitoring the values of variables and expressions. They can also examine the call stack for each thread in a program.
The distributed debugger component provides support for the following languages:
IBM COBOL for AIX is part of a large family of compatible compilers, application development tools, and maintenance tools. In addition to COBOL for AIX, IBM offers IBM COBOL compilers for z/OS, Windows, VSE, and AS/400.
