GnuCOBOL 3.2 released

GnuCOBOL 3.2 includes many new features compared to the previous release, while maintaining full source compatibility.

The amount of changes from GnuCOBOL 3.1 to 3.2 is huge, here are some of the highlights:

• improved dialect handling including changed defaults to better match the selected dialect (see NEWS if you compile with any -std to know more about the implications), a complete new dialect GCOS and support for more COBOL statements, intrinsic functions and syntax from both "old" and new dialects
• highly improved run-times for several statements, along with less memory usage, especially if runtime checks are enabled
• fileio changes to support LINE-SEQUENTIAL per COBOL2023 and runtime options to change the way files are handled, see NEWS and runtime.cfg
• improvements for source-level debugging via GDB and coredump support
• output of context for diagnostics
• improvements for reproducible builds

For a much more complete list, have a look at the NEWS file.

For source downloads, visit

https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnucobol/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnucobol/files/gnucobol/3.2/

Pre-built binaries are also available, some package managers for system repositories already updated the system "gnucobol" package - if you only find an old version or the unstable 4.x you're invited to drop them a note.