#1194 Internal Compiler Error on ENTRY statement with invalid USING

[Eugenio Di Lorenzo]

Following program cause an internal compiler error.

       >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
ID DIVISION.
program-id. TESTENTRY.
DATA DIVISION.
LINKAGE SECTION.
01  wFIELD01-L PIC XX value NULL.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.
*> ENTRY 'aaaa' USING wFIELD01-L.

ENTRY 'myENTRY01' USING 'xxxxxxxxxx'.

*> FOLLOWING STATEMENTS CAUSE SAME INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR
*> ENTRY 'myENTRY01' USING omitted .
*> ENTRY 'myENTRY01' USING by CONTENT    'jjjj' .
*> ENTRY 'myENTRY01' USING by REFERENCE  'jjjj' .
*> ENTRY 'myENTRY01' USING by REFERENCE wFIELD01-L 'aaaaa' omitted.
GOBACK.

Messages from SuperBOL:

 *  Executing task: cobc -x -ftraceall -g -fformat=auto -std=default -ext cpy -ext cbl -ext cob TESTNULL.COB -I . 

cobc: call to 'cb_ref' with invalid parameter 'x'
cobc: tree.c:5152: internal compiler error

cobc: aborting compile of TESTENTRY.COB at line 11 (PROGRAM-ID: TESTENTRY)

cobc: Please report this!


 *  The terminal process "C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe /d /c cobc -x -ftraceall -g -fformat=auto -std=default -ext cpy -ext cbl -ext cob TESTNULL.COB -I ." terminated with exit code: 3. 
 *  Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it. 

[Simon Sobisch]

As likely kown that is "ice-invalid" (internal compiler error on invalid code).
cobc should error when using anything but data-items for the USING clause.

Interestingly gcobol has the exact same issue :-) I'll fill a bug report for that as well.

[Eugenio Di Lorenzo]

The updated PG and the old Grammar documentation currently contain what I'm attaching.
As far as I can see, ENTRY is a verb that does not exist in the ISO STANDARD:
Could you give me the correct syntax version ?

[Simon Sobisch]

The USING clause needs to be adjusted - only BY REFERENCE (default) or BY VALUE, only identifier (with identifier being a level 01/77 data-item in LINKAGE SECTION).

The rest is fine (but the call-convention/linkage part being dialect specific).

[Eugenio Di Lorenzo]

Then it should be as follows.
Can you confirm this ?

ENTRY [ { STATIC          } ] [ WITH { STDCALL } LINKAGE ] literal-1   
~~~~~   { ~~~~~~          }     ~~~~ { ~~~~~~~ } ~~~~~~~   
        { STDCALL         }          { C       }          
        { ~~~~~~~         }          { ~       }          
        { C               }          { PASCAL  }          
        { ~               }           ~~~~~~            
        { PASCAL          }  
        { ~~~~~~          }  
        { EXTERN          }  
        { ~~~~~~          }  
        { mnemonic-name-1 }  

      [ USING  { [ BY { REFERENCE } ] { identifier-1 }... }... ] 
        ~~~~~         { ~~~~~~~~~ }         
                      { VALUE     }    
                        ~~~~~              

[Eugenio Di Lorenzo]

You said that ENTRYonly allows BY REFERENCEand BY VALUE but bollowing sample use ENTRY ... USING BY CONTENT .... and it compiles without errors.
How come ?

       >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE
ID DIVISION.
program-id. TESTENTRY.
DATA DIVISION.
working-storage section.
01 wFIELD01 PIC XXX. 
01 wFIELD02 PIC 999 value 2. 
LINKAGE SECTION.
01  wFIELD01-L PIC XX value NULL.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    ENTRY 'MYPROG1' USING  BY CONTENT                 wFIELD01-L.
*>  ENTRY 'MYPROG2' USING  BY VALUE   UNSIGNED SIZE 2 wFIELD01-L.
*>  ENTRY 'MYPROG3' USING  BY VALUE   SIZE DEFAULT    wFIELD01-L.
*>  ENTRY 'MYPROG4' USING  BY VALUE   SIZE AUTO       wFIELD01-L.
GOBACK.

[Simon Sobisch]

That's a bug in the code - only the caller may define BY CONTENT (while the callee would use BY REFERENCE as a counter-side).

This is all in the same area of the code and will be fixed together.

I can confirm that the syntax diagram is the one you've posted above (with WITH ... LINKAGE being dialect specific and only be usable when the internal or standard-compliant manually defined call-convention mnemonic-name is not used),

[Vincent (Bryan) Coen]

ENTRY entry-name [USING identifier-1 [identifier-2].....]  - (VSC2)
(OSV2) (MF)

ENTRY entry-name         (MF)

[ USING { BY REFERENCE ] data-name-1 ....  }... ]
[             { BY VALUE ] data-name-2 ....  (MF)  }... ] (MF) (OPSVS)
(VSC2)

Taken from MF COBOL for DOS, Windows, and OS/2 pocket guide issue 6
April 1993
         The Workbench system and yes I do have the full manual/s
here.  indecupboard.

On 09/02/2026 15:07, Eugenio Di Lorenzo wrote:

The updated PG and the old Grammar documentation currently contain
what I'm attaching.
As far as I can see, ENTRY is a verb that does not exist in the ISO
STANDARD:
Could you give me the correct syntax version ?

Attachments:

• ENTRY-PG.png
  https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/bugs/_discuss/thread/fd3ac0f4eb/f57e/attachment/ENTRY-PG.png
  (123.7 kB; image/png)
• ENTRY-Grammar.png
  https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/bugs/_discuss/thread/fd3ac0f4eb/f57e/attachment/ENTRY-Grammar.png
  (62.5 kB; image/png)

---

[bugs:#1194] https://sourceforge.net/p/gnucobol/bugs/1194/ Internal
Compiler Error on ENTRY statement with invalid USING

Status: accepted
Group: GC 3.x
Labels: cobc internal compiler error ENTRY literals
Created: Mon Feb 09, 2026 12:00 PM UTC by Eugenio Di Lorenzo
Last Updated: Mon Feb 09, 2026 02:38 PM UTC
Owner: Simon Sobisch

Following program cause an internal compiler error.

|>>SOURCEFORMATISFREE IDDIVISION. program-id.TESTENTRY. DATADIVISION.
LINKAGESECTION. 01wFIELD01-LPICXXvalueNULL. PROCEDUREDIVISION.
>ENTRY'aaaa'USINGwFIELD01-L. ENTRY'myENTRY01'USING'xxxxxxxxxx'.
>FOLLOWINGSTATEMENTSCAUSESAMEINTERNALCOMPILERERROR
>ENTRY'myENTRY01'USINGomitted.
>ENTRY'myENTRY01'USINGbyCONTENT'jjjj'.
>ENTRY'myENTRY01'USINGbyREFERENCE'jjjj'.
>ENTRY'myENTRY01'USINGbyREFERENCEwFIELD01-L'aaaaa'omitted. GOBACK. |

Messages from SuperBOL:

|* Executing task: cobc -x -ftraceall -g -fformat=auto -std=default
-ext cpy -ext cbl -ext cob TESTNULL.COB -I . cobc: call to 'cb_ref'
with invalid parameter 'x' cobc: tree.c:5152: internal compiler error
cobc: aborting compile of TESTENTRY.COB at line 11 (PROGRAM-ID:
TESTENTRY) cobc: Please report this! * The terminal process
"C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe /d /c cobc -x -ftraceall -g -fformat=auto
-std=default -ext cpy -ext cbl -ext cob TESTNULL.COB -I ." terminated
with exit code: 3. * Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key
to close it. |

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