GnuCOBOL https://www.gnu.org/software/gnucobol/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnucobol https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnucobol GnuCOBOL is a free (like both in "free speech" and in "free beer"), modern COBOL compiler. GnuCOBOL implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85, COBOL 2002 and COBOL 2014 standards and X/Open COBOL, as well as many extensions included in other COBOL compilers (IBM COBOL, MicroFocus COBOL, ACUCOBOL-GT and others). GnuCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using the native C compiler on various platforms, including GNU/Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. This package contains the following subdirectories: cobc COBOL compiler libcob COBOL run-time library bin COBOL driver program build_aux Helper scripts lib Helper routines for missing OS functionality config Configuration files po International messages doc 'info' and 'pdf' files tests Test suites (GnuCOBOL and framework for COBOL85) extras useful COBOL programs All programs except those in lib and libcob are distributed under the GNU General Public License. See COPYING for details. Programs in lib and libcob are distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License. See COPYING.LESSER for details. For any copyright year range specified as YYYY-ZZZZ in this package, that the range specifies every single year in that closed interval. Although many have participated, most development thanks go to Roger While Keisuke Nishida See AUTHORS for the author of each file. ============ Requirements ============ GnuCOBOL uses other software packages, some of these are necessary, some optional. See DEPENDENCIES for a complete list of these which may be helpful if you build GnuCOBOL from source. You will also likely see some of those when using pre-built binaries of this project, for example via your OS package manager like apt, yum, pacman, brew, ... ============ Installation ============ See the INSTALL file for detailed information about how to configure and install GnuCOBOL "building from source". Special requirements and further installation notes are listed below. ** NOTE ** The default installation path for GnuCOBOL is /usr/local. The installation path may be changed by specifying --prefix=<dir> as a parameter to the configure. Further parameters may be specified to affect include/library search paths. Execute ./configure --help for further details. To generate/install GnuCOBOL : ************************************** Configure and build ./configure make Here you may run different tests with the version of GnuCOBOL that is not installed yet, see "Tests" below. This is *highly recommended* before installing. Install make install ** NOTE ** You generally need super-user privileges to execute "make install" unless you changed the installation directory with "./configure --prefix=<dir>" or install to a different location with "make install DESTDIR=<dir>". In those later cases you only need to have full access to <dir>. ** NOTE ** On Linux systems, if you are installing for the -first- time, you may need to run "ldconfig" (as root). In fact, it does not hurt if you always do this. ** NOTE ** On some Red Hat (Fedora) installations and possibly other Linux distros, /usr/local/lib is NOT automatically searched at runtime. Edit /etc/ld.so.conf (or the equivalent file) and add /usr/local/lib to the file. Rerun "ldconfig". ************************************** If you think you have a problem or just want to log the output of make then redirect the output with : make 1>mymake.log 2>&1 make install 1>myinstall.log 2>&1 ************************************** You can get back to a clean installation status by running : make distclean ************************************** ============ Tests ============ To run the internal testsuite, simply do make check This MUST succeed - If not, please report. You may optionally perform a series of COBOL85 tests. make test It is recommended that you also perform these tests. ** NOTE ** The language interpreter "perl" is required to run COBOL85 tests. ** NOTE ** Running "make test" will try to download the COBOL85 testsuite if it is missing. For details see tests/cobol85/README. If you want to run both testsuites you can run make checkall ============ The following is only interesting for advanced use. A normal user should not have recourse to use these options. There are many configure options (see configure --help for a full list), these are the most important ones: --with-db Use Berkeley DB >= 4.1 (libdb) (ISAM handler) This is the default --without-db Do neither use Berkeley DB nor any other ISAM handler You will not be able to use indexed I/O --with-vbisam Use VBISAM (libvbisam) (ISAM handler) --with-dl Use the system dynamic linker This is the default --without-dl Use ltdl for dynamic program loading --with-patch-level=<n> Set internal patch level to n (default 0) --with-varseq=<n> Define the default format for variable length sequential files. The default may be overridden at run time by setting the environment variable COB_VARSEQ_FORMAT to 0, 1, 2, or 3. For values of 0, 1 and 2, four bytes are written preceding each record. The format of these four bytes for values of 0, 1, 2 is as follows : n = 0 (default) The first 2 bytes are the record length in big-endian order. This is compatible with mainframe. Bytes 3 and 4 are set to binary 0. n = 1 The 4 bytes are the record length in big-endian order. n = 2 The 4 bytes are the record length in native machine order (int). (This was previously the default) For the value of 3, two bytes are written preceding each record : n = 3 The first 2 bytes are the record length in big-endian order. The record follows immediately after beginning at byte 3. --enable-debug Add '-g' debug option to make ============ ============ Development ============ If you wish to hack the GnuCOBOL source or build from version control, see HACKING. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWS - user visible changes -*- outline -*- GnuCOBOL 3.2 (20230728) GnuCOBOL 3.2rc1 (20230118) GnuCOBOL 3.2rc2 (20230210) * New GnuCOBOL features ** Support for LINE SEQUENTIAL file type as per COBOL 2023 * OPEN INPUT-OUTPUT and REWRITE are allowed (note that INPUT-OUTPUT leads to slower IO for LINE SEQUENTIAL files) * validation of data on (RE-)WRITE and READ, active by default, can be adjusted with the new runtime option COB_LS_VALIDATE ** New intrinsic functions BIT-OF, BIT-TO-CHAR, HEX-OF, HEX-TO-CHAR ** Support for COBOL 2023 directive COBOL-WORDS ** Support for bit operations according to COBOL 2023 with MF compatibility ** Support for additional $SET directives: ODOSLIDE ** Support for the EXTFH has been greatly enhanched and now includes support for FH--FCD and FH--KEYDEF, fixed use of different attributes and changing pointers and now supports - for 32-bit builds - an internal conversion between FCD2 and FCD3 for cases where existing programs are coded with FCD2 ** OCCURS with multiple VALUEs supported (BS2000 format, FROM and TO pending) ** new function to call COBOL from C that doesn't abort the program in case of runtime errors or STOP RUN: cob_call_with_exception_check() ** Support for the GCOS 7 (Bull) dialect, including: * PICTURE strings with L character (variable length fields) * CONTROL DIVISION with SUBSTITUTION SECTION (full support) and DEFAULT SECTION (partial support) ** Multiple sequential files can be concatenated by specifying multiple files with a separator in the ASSIGN name (either directly or via environment), see the new runtime options COB_SEQ_CONCAT_NAME (defaults to false) and COB_SEQ_CONCAT_SEP ** Initial "testing support" of CODE-SET clause to convert between ASCII and EBCDIC on READ/WRITE/REWRITE for sequential and line-sequential files ** Initial "testing support" of FLOAT-EXTENDED (long double type) ** minimal "parsing support" for USAGE UTF-8 and UTF-8 literals ** Support to exit the runtime from COBOL as hard error (including possible [core-]dump and stacktrace) with "STOP ERROR" statement or by CALL "CBL_RUNTIME_ERROR" ** COB_PHYSICAL_CANCEL can now be configured as "never" to prevent unloading of COBOL modules, both on CANCEL and on process exit, which is useful for analysis tools such as callgrind or perf to keep all symbols until the end of the COBOL process ** the system function x'91' has been extended to support more functions * Changes that potentially effect existing programs: ** ALLOCATE statement: earlier versions of GnuCOBOL initialized the memory (to binary zero) if the INITIALIZED clause was not specified, this isn't done anymore so if you need the memory to be initialized specify that explicit in the source and recompile ** variable-length RECORD SEQUENTIAL files, data validation on READ: the length of the record as stored in the file is now checked for correct format and is then compared against the record size defined in the program; if the minimal record size specified is bigger, then the data is only written up to the record length for that record, the other data is undefined and io status 04 returned; if the record length is bigger than the record size the record from the file is truncated, io status 04 set and the following READ will start at the next record; additionally on OPEN the length of the first record is read and if it isn't within the above rulesan io status 39 is returned; as the default format "COB_VARSEQ_TYPE = 0" contains two NULL bytes this will likely make most LINE SEQUENTIAL files not declared as this type fail on OPEN ** LINE SEQUENTIAL files, data validation: in case of bad printable data (less than SPACE) a READ may result in io status 09 and WRITE may error with io status 71; see the new runtime option COB_LS_VALIDATE to disable this validation (= old behavior) and to increase performance on line sequential file io; if LS_NULLS is active and invalid data (bad encoded or missing encoding) is found io status 71 is returned ** LINE SEQUENTIAL files, handling of records that are "too long": in case of "overflowing" records previous versions of GnuCOBOL cut the data, set io status 00 and skipped the file until the next line terminator is found; the default changed (per COBOL 2023 and other compilers) so the data is returned as "multiple" records and a warning (status 06) is issued; setting COB_LS_SPLIT = false will have the old behaviour of truncating the record, but will now set status 04 ** FUNCTION RANDOM: the internal randomizer was changed from "C" to "GMP" this means that the sequence of random numbers are different when using the same seed as versions before 3.2 while the changed use has the downside of taking longer for each seeding, it provides a much better distributed sequence and increases portability (switching to a different "C" runtime or operating system won't change the sequences); additional the implementor-defined default seeding was changed from "0 in most cases" to a random seed; if you _want_ the return values to be identical you always need to specify a seed (including possibly 0); the old behaviour can be enforced by compiling GnuCOBOL with LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS=-DDISABLE_GMP_RANDOM ** FUNCTION EXCEPTION-LOCATION: if the source raising an exception was not compiled with location information this function previously returned a single space; GnuCOBOL now always returns the module name, a procedure- name " " and the source (line) identifier "0" ** FUNCTIONs NUMVAL, NUMVAL-C, NUMVAL-F: if the argument does not match the argument rules previous versions returned zero; now invalid data is skipped; for example: "1. A-0B4.5" now returns -1.045 (or -1045 when the DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA clause is in effect); as with previous versions the argument can be validated before using the FUNCTIONs TEST-NUMVAL, TEST-NUMVAL-C, TEST-NUMVAL-F or the exception can be checked afterwards using the EXCEPTION related functions; the old behaviour can be enforced by compiling GnuCOBOL with LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS=-DINVALID_NUMVAL_IS_ZERO ** Handling of invalid numeric USAGE DISPLAY data: previously the complete character was inspected and adjusted for conversion, now only the second half-byte is used; this yields in different results, for example both the zero and space character in both ASCII and EBCDIC charset will now result in a numeric zero; previously invalid data could result in huge or negative numbers in internal intermediate items; as this was both adjusted in the runtime and in the the generated modules invalid data may have additional unexpected results if programs are not recompiled ** ORGANIZATION INDEXED (with BDB backend): internal changes in record and file locking, fixing some related bugs ** extended screen io with PDCurses (most Win32 builds): blink and bolding are now enabled, when supported ** extended screen io: support for color codes 8-15 (implied highlight/blink attribute); only the three lower bits are now considered during evaluation of the color-number, leading to a previous value of 21 (which was ignored until now) being interpreted as 5, see FR #387 ** extended screen io with single-fields: runtime-adjustable attributes by support of extension clauses COLOR and CONTROL for ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements, see FR #189 + FR #355; note: while COLOR and CONTROL are parsed for SCREEN SECTION they are ignored at runtime ** extended screen io with single-fields: the ACCEPT statement now supports the extension CURSOR clause, additional to the standard-defined CONTROL phrase in SPECIAL-NAMES ** the programmable runtime switches "SWITCH A" through "SWITCH Z" internally used 1-26 and now use 11-36 to be able to combine then with switches 0-7; if you set those via COB_SWITCH environment variables you need to adjust their numbers * Changes that potentially effect recompilation of existing programs: ** the reserved word list and intrinsic functions was updated, especially to cater for new features of COBOL 2023; if compiling with any non-strict dialect you may need to unreserve any conflicting words / functions ** in 64-bit environments, the default size for BY VALUE parameters has changed: If no explicit SIZE IS clause is specified, old behavior: parameter passed as 32-bit value new behavior: parameter passed as 64-bit value To specify a 32-bit BY VALUE parameter, change the COBOL source to use SIZE IS 4. To continue to rely on the default size, both caller and callee modules that use BY VALUE must be compiled with the same version of GnuCOBOL, either prior this release, or since. ** cobc now uses a two-pass preprocessing algorithm, where replacements for COPY-REPLACING are done in a first pass, and the replacements for REPLACE are done in a second pass. Note that, however, both statements are parsed before the first replacement pass, so COPY-REPLACING cannot impact a REPLACE statement itself. * Changes to the COBOL compiler (cobc) options: ** new -fformat dialect option, and extended SOURCE FORMAT directives, with the following newly supported reference-formats (in addition to FIXED/FREE): COBOL85 Fixed-form format with enforcement of Area A COBOLX GCOS 7 extended format CRT ICOBOL Free-form format TERMINAL ACUCOBOL-GT Terminal format VARIABLE Micro Focus Variable Fixed-form format XCARD ICOBOL xCard (extended card) format XOPEN X/Open Free-form format These formats come with Area A enforcement (except for XOPEN), that checks whether division, section, and paragraph names start in Area A (i.e, before margin B), and so do level indicators FD, SD, RD, and CD, and level numbers 01, and 77. The underlying checks are enabled or disabled by default using dialect option `areacheck`, and then with `$SET AREACHECK` and `$SET NOAREACHECK` compiler directives. As a result of reference format being a dialect option, Area A enforcement is available and enabled by default for dialects BS2000 COBOL, CA Realia II, COBOL85, GCOS COBOL, IBM COBOL, MVS/VM COBOL, RM-COBOL, and X/Open COBOL. Area A enforcement additionally enables detection of missing periods before level numbers that lie in Area A in the DATA DIVISION, and before paragraph and section names in the PROCEDURE DIVISION. More generally, some, but not all, missing periods can be reported and recovered from. This is configurable with option `missing-period`. If not specified, the compiler tries to automatically recognize the format, using either fixed or free, depending on column 7 in the first non-space line. This feature can be disabled by setting the format manually with `-free`, `-fixed` or `-fformat`. ** the new -febcdic-table option enables one to specify the translation table used when dealing with EBCDIC codeset; these translation tables are stored as new configuration files with an extension of ".ttbl", currently available tables are: default translation to extended ASCII as per MF alternate translation from restricted ASCII only ebcdic500_ascii7bit EBCDIC 500 <-> 7-bit ASCII as per IBM ebcdic500_ascii8bit EBCDIC 500 <-> 8-bit ASCII as per GCOS7 ebcdic500_latin1 EBCDIC 500 <-> latin-1 as per iconv This option supersedes the -falternate-ebcdic flag (still available for backwards compatibility), which is equivalent to -febcdic-table=alternate. ** the compile flag -fodoslide was moved to a dialect configuration, while -fodoslide still works as before it is now implied with -std=ibm/mvs/bs2000, if you use those dialects consider to recompile affected programs (with OCCURS DEPENDING ON) or compile with additional -fno-odoslide to get the same results as with older GnuCOBOL versions ** the compile flag -fdefaultbyte (initialization for data-items without an explicit VALUE) was moved to a dialect configuration; while -fdefaultbyte still works as before it is now implied as binary zero with -std=ibm/mvs/bs2000/realia, space for -std=mf/acu/rm, and no defined initialization for -std=cobol85/cobol2002/cobol2014/xopen, it is unchanged for -std=default (initialize to PICTURE/USAGE); for compatibility to previous behavior compile with -fdefaultbyte=init; note that initialization for INDEXED BY items honors the defaultbyte configuration now, too ** new dialect init-justified that applies right justification by JUSTIFIED clause for VALUE clause; this is applied to IBM dialects, if you want the previous behavior compile with -fno-init-justified ** depending on the new dialect option "using-optional" (included in the the default dialect), checks for arguments not passed are now done (only) on CALL, not on their (possibly many) references; if you want the old "postponed" check either specify the parameter as OPTIONAL or use -fusing-optional=skip; note: the non-strict dialects will raise a warning on the first use of this feature, then automatically enable it ** the dialect configuration option larger-redefines-ok was replaced by the support option larger-redefines; if specified on the command-line it is now -f[no-]larger-redefines instead of -f[no-]larger-redefines-ok, which allows to also raise a warning for those with -flarger-redefines=warn Note: the short one works both in current and older versions of cobc ** the subscript checking enabled with -fec=bound-subscript (implied with --debug) now generates checks depending on the new dialect configuration option subscript-check if OCCURS DEPNDING ON is used; the full check according to ISO COBOL, which checks against the ODO item is still used in the default dialect, but several dialects now only check against the maximum only ** the GnuCOBOL extension of auto-adding the RECURSIVE attribute if a program potentially calls its own PROGRAM-ID was moved to a dialect option; it is now only active with -std=default (and raises a warning as previously with -Wextra); if you want to use this extension for other dialects use the new -fself-call-recursive=warning (or "ok") ** the option -g does no longer imply -fsource-location; but it auto-includes references to the COBOL-paragraphs to further ease source level debugging ** -fsource-location generates source references to copyboooks in DATA DIVISION, enabling to inspect the initial VALUE setting as well as "list"ing those copybooks with a source level debugger ** new flag -fstack-extended (implied with --debug and --dump) to include the origin of entrypoints and PERFORM, this is used for the internal stack trace on abort and can be used for improved source level debugging ** new flag -fmemory-check (implied with --debug) to do some validation of internal memory used during CALL; this can help in finding otherwise hard to diagnose overwrite of memory and as it is only done on CALL has a much smaller footprint than -fec=bounds (as both check different aspects at different places it is also reasonable to use both); to disable it use -fmemory-check=none or limit by -fmemory-check=pointer ** the option -g does no longer imply -fno-remove-unreachable; if you want to keep those in you need to explicit specify this ** the option -O0 now implies -fno-remove-unreachable ** new options to ensure structured code-flow: -fsection-exit-check to ensure sections don't "fall through" (are always entered and left by PERFORM) -fimplicit-goback-check to ensure modules are not left by implicit GOBACK at end of PROCEDURE DIVISION ** adjustments to warning options: -Wconstant-expression was changed to a group warning and includes the new, previously integrated, -Wconstant-numlit-expression -Wtyping as a new warning raises only very suspicious MOVEs, -Wstrict-typing, which will warn as before even for MOVE 1 TO PICX-FLD is not included in -Wall any more -Wlarger-01-redefines as new warning (enabled by -Wextra) to check for the only larger REDEFINES that is explicit allowed by the COBOL standard -Wno-unsupported -Wunsupported new option to disable or only warn on use of features the runtime is not configured for; this new option defaults to an error (= -Werror=unsupported) -Wgoto-different-section as new warning (enabled by -Wall) to check for GO TO that are likely to break the flow of PERFORM some-section -Wgoto-section as new warning (enabled by default) to check for GO TO a section instead of a paragraph; while allowed this is often a coding error -Wsuspicious-perform-thru (enabled by default) to check for PERFORM ranges that are likely to create unwanted behaviour -Wother now warns for suspicious reference-modification which is likely to create out-of-bounds access at runtime ** new compiler command line option to list the known runtime exception names and fatality `cobc --list-exceptions` ** new compiler command line option -ftcmd to enable printing of the command line in the source listing, -fno-timestamp to suppress printing of the time and -ftittle to set a title instead of GnuCOBOL and version (_ chars are replaced by spaces in the title) ** new compiler command line option --coverage to instrument binaries for coverage checks ** the command line options -MT and -MF, which are used for creating a dependency list (used copybooks) to be used for inclusion in Makefiles or other processes, and which were removed in GnuCOBOL 2 are back in their original version; note: their use will be adjusted where they don't match GCC's same options in later versions, including addition of -M and -MD ** new -std options: gcos GCOS compatibility gcos-strict GCOS compatibility - strict We define the GCOS dialect based on the COBOL85 standard, with new dialect configuration options accompanying each specificity introduced by the dialect. ** new diagnostic format for errors: the diagnostics now print the source code context with a left margin showing line numbers, configurable with -fno-diagnostics-show-line-numbers, and possible to disable completely with -fno-diagnostics-show-caret; the option -fdiagnostics-plain-output was added to request that diagnostic output look as plain as possible and stay more stable over time ** the -P flag accepts - as argument for stdout * Important Bugfixes: ** for dialects other than the GnuCOBOL default different reserved "alias" words were not usable, for example SYNCHRONIZED or COMPUTATIONAL. This was fixed and reserved words updated for the dialects "acu" (to ACUCOBOL-GT 10.4), "ibm" (to Enterprise COBOL 6.3) and "mf" (to Micro Focus Visual COBOL 6.0) ** for all "lax" varants SYNC was handled even if commonly ignored by the strict dialects, this was fixed so SYNC is ignored depending on the dialect ** COBOL programs compiled with versions before GnuCOBOL 3 that used files with ORGANIZATION INDEXED or RELATIVE crashed when executed with newer versions, this has been fixed so that all modules compiled with GnuCOBOL 2.2 can be executed with GnuCOBOL 3.2 ** FUNCTION RANDOM could return 1 in rare cases (more likely on win32), it now returns a value in the range 0 <= x < 1, as defined ** the internal signal handler could crash or deadlock the process on hard errors (either in called library functions or when running COBOL without runtime checks); the signal handling is now completely rewritten to fix this issue and all executed code from the signal handler but the COBOL data dump is now signal and thread safe ** TYPEDEF items got storage and attribute assigned, leading to bigger modules, longer loading time and longer compile times; if you use those a recompile is highly suggested ** several bugs in COPY REPLACING / REPLACING were fixed along with adding support for exensions related to REPLACING LEADING / TRAILING ** for PICTURE P several fixes were made, so results may vary compared with previous versions; sources with *leading* P never worked correct before, and *must* be recompiled after upgrading ** since its addition to GnuCOBOL ROUNDING MODE PROHIBITED just prevented rounding; its behaviour changed to match the specification by doing that, raising EC-SIZE-TRUNCATION and changed: not adjust the target field if rounding would be necessary to store the data * Listing changes ** the timestamp in the header was changed from ANSI date format like "Tue Sep 28 09:49:43 2021" to formatted time (year after day); this may be changed during `configure` with adding a define to COBC_CPPFLAGS; to either use the old format, adding add `-DLISTING_TIMESTAMP_ANSI`, or to use an explicit format (cut at 26 characters, may raise false-positives in listing tests) e.g. date only `-DLISTING_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT="%Y-%m-%d"` ** new compile options to adjust the listing, see above * More notable changes ** in general, the maximum field size in LINKAGE SECTION was increased from 268435456 bytes (999999998 bytes for OCCURS UNBOUNDED) to the system specific INT_MAX - 1, which is commonly 2 GB ** in 64-bit environments, the maximum field size outside of LINKAGE SECTION was increased from 268435456 bytes to 2 GB ** numeric DISPLAY can store and may contain a positive zero after arithmetic, PACKED-DECIMAL may contain negative zero (x'0D') after arithmetic; as before numeric comparisions to ZERO / 0 / +0 / -0 will all be identical ** quotes around filenames and parts that are resolved by environment variables are internally ignored ** the exception check for EC-PROGRAM-ARG-MISMATCH is now generated, validating that non-optional PROCEDURE DIVISION USING items are passed and that their size in the caller is at least as big as in the program ** in case of any runtime features being used that are not available an error is generated during compile (may be reduced to a warning by -Wunsupported or be suppressed by -Wno-unsupported) and if the feature is actually used at runtime a related exception status is set ** the call-stack show on error and/or in the dump file now contains all parameters given to the program via command line options, if any; if full debugging information is available it includes all PERFORMs executed ** the dump that is created on abort for all programs that were compiled with -fdump can be explicit disabled by setting COB_DUMP_FILE=NONE; it is automatically disabled if the process ends upon signals SIGINT/SIGTERM and now also disabled upon SIGHUP/SIGPIPE ** additional or instead of the internal COBOL dump a coredump file may be created on runtime errors and when configured in the system also after the signal handler; see the new runtime option COB_CORE_ON_ERROR for details (the default is a best match to the old behavior) ** source references shown in diagnostic messages and for trace at runtime as well as during debugging were extended, for example each executed WHEN, VARYING and UNTIL phrases are now seen ** condition-names are made available for source-level debugging ** cobc's parsing time was significantly reduced for big programs ** execution times were significantly reduced for the following: INSPECT that use big COBOL fields (multiple KB) MOVE and comparisions in general (especially with enabled runtime checks, to optimize those a re-compile is needed) CALL data-item, and first time for each CALL ACCEPT DATE/TIME/DAY, most if numeric items are accepted datetime related FUNCTIONs runtime checks for use of LINKAGE/BASED fields and/or subscripts/reference-modification (re-compile needed) general: execution of programs generated with -fsource-location (implied with --debug and -fec), especially when many "simple" statements or lot of sections/paragraphs are used (re-compile needed) * New system functions CBL_GC_SET_SCR_SIZE option to resize extended screen * New build features ** configure now honors BDB_LIBS and BDB_CFLAGS ** configure now honors MATH_LIBS ** configure now checks for XCurses and allows --with-curses=xcurses (experimental) ** configure now checks for PERL and passes that as default to make test ** cobc handles SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH now, allowing to override timestamps in generated code and listing files, allowing reproducible builds of both GnuCOBOL (extras folder) and COBOL programs * Obsolete features (will be removed in the next version if no explicit user requests are raised) ** use of old non-GMP randomizer for FUNCTION RANDOM ** undocumented option -tsymbols, which was replaced by -ftsymbols in 3.0 * Known issues in 3.2 (and 3.1) ** testsuite: * if built with vbisam, cisam or disam, depending on the version used, some tests will lead to UNEXPECTED PASS, while others may fail * possibly failing tests (false positives): * temporary path invalid * compiler outputs (assembler) * compile from stdin * NIST: OBNC1M.CBL false positive (the test runner uses a nonportable way of emulating a program kill) * if build with -fsanitize, then some tests will fail; while we accept patches to improve that, we don't consider the failing tests as bug in GnuCOBOL ** the recent additions of ">> TURN" and "variable LIKE variable" may not work as expected in all cases ** floating-point comparison for equality may return unexpected results as it involves a necessary tolerance; you may adjust the default tolerance of 0.0000001 by compiling GnuCOBOL for example with LIBCOB_CPPFLAGS="-DCOB_FLOAT_DELTA=0.0000000000001"; we seek input for a reasonable default for GnuCOBOL 4 (use the mailing list or discussion board to share your comments on this topic, keeping in mind that this has to take both mathematical and "C compiler portability" into account) ** variables containing PICTURE symbol P may lead to wrong results in rare cases (especially screenio) - please send a bug report if you catch a case; since GC 3.2 rc3 all arithmetic operations and MOVE are believed to be correct ** features that are known to not be portable to every environment yet (especially when using a different compiler than GCC) * function with variable-length RETURNING item * USAGE POINTER, which may need to be manually aligned ** all versions of GnuCOBOL so far: EVALUATE evaluates all subjects on *each* WHEN (the standard explicit requests a one-time evaluation of the subjects, then comparing the value); to work around possible issues move more complex subjects like variables with subscripts and reference-modification, as well as calculated subjects and function calls to a temporary variable and use this as subject for the EVALUATE For more known issues see the bug tracker. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GnuCOBOL 3.1.2 released (20201223) GnuCOBOL 3.1.1 released (20201208) containing INITIALIZE bug #694 GnuCOBOL 3.1 released (20201111) had build issues that were fixed * New GnuCOBOL features ** XML GENERATE statement (note: runtime support needs additional library libxml2) ** JSON GENERATE statement (note: runtime support needs additional library cJSON or JSON-C) ** CONTINUE AFTER statement (COBOL 2023) implemented, also handle fractions of seconds in C$SLEEP now ** TYPEDEF and SAME AS (COBOL 2002) implemented, including the MicroFocus and RM/COBOL variants ** >>TURN (COBOL 2002) directive implemented, allowing some exception checks to be turned on/off per source as desired ** Improved support for different compiler extensions (ACUCOBOL, IBM, Fujitsu, MicroFocus COBOL, Microsoft COBOL, RM/COBOL, CA Realia and more) ** file handling: include support for a callable EXTFH interface also provided by several compilers including Micro Focus This allows users to insert an external file handler while retaining all the normal COBOL I/O functions with a possible callback to libcob. To have the compiled program call `yourfh()` for file I/O use: `cobc -fcallfh=yourfh` In turn `yourfh()` may call `EXTFH()` to use I/O functions from GnuCOBOL. The external file handler can also be directly invoked from COBOL, too, using `CALL "EXTFH"`. ** Note: Not each flag contained in the FCD3 is handled already ** ** file handling: added support for [RE]WRITE FILE file FROM source ** file handling: name mapping adjusted (improved MF and ACU-compatibility): entries starting with a period or number are not resolved any more, periods in the external identifier are always replaced by underscore -> MY.FILE is resolved by DD_MY_FILE, dd_MY_FILE, MYFILE now; prefixes "-F " and "-D " are removed from external names; if filename is not absolute after translation, COB_FILE_PATH is now still applied; File name mapping now applies both to COBOL statements and CALLable CBL_ and C$ file routines. ** Screen I/O: initial mouse support (for details see runtime.cfg), use of CURSOR clause in SPECIAL-NAMES for positioning on ACCEPT ** on abort a stack trace will be generated, this can be suppressed by runtime configuration option COB_STRACK_TRACE ** the dump that is generated on abort (depending on -fdump at compile-time) was heavily improved and combines consecutive identical OCCURS items, leading to smaller dump files ** changes in handling COPY statement: * copybook names that contain an extension aren't searched with additional extensions [as post-rc1-change this may be set to old behavior by defining COB_MULTI_EXTENSION when building GnuCOBOL/cobc] * library names are now tested for environment "COB_COPY_LIB_libname", allowing the directory to specified externally (also as no-directory by exporting with empty value) and has a fallback (with a warning) to be effectively ignored (as previous versions did this) * Removed functions ** SCREEN SECTION, REPORT-WRITER module: removed non-standard extension "LINE / COL signed-integer" (inadvertently available since 2.2/3.0rc1); which will now raise an error "unsigned integer expected"; if used replace by standard "LINE / COL +/- integer" * Obsolete features (will be removed in the next version if no explicit user requests are raised) ** support for Borland C compiler and linker ** -fif-cutoff flag for cobc (currently disabled, see entry below in 3.0rc1) ** old OpenCOBOL-only-EXTFH * Changes to the COBOL compiler (cobc) options: ** new options: -f[no]-ec=exception-name to tune the exception checks similar to the >>TURN directive, you may also leave out the "EC-" prefix here, example to enable all checks but disable all bound checks but OCCURS DEPENDING ON: cobc -debug -fno-ec=bound -fec=bound-odo ** adjustments to warning options: -Wextra "new" option to enable every possible warning that is not dialect specific (this option used to be called -W) -Wadditional new warning group for all warnings that don't have a group on their own -Wno-error and -Wno-error=<warning> to treat all or a specific <warning> not as error -Wdangling-text for raising the warning "source text after program area", not included in -Wall any more -Wno-ignored-error allows to suppress messages that normally would be an error and are only allowed because they are never executed -Wcorresponding is now enabled by default -f[no]-diagnostics-show-option, enabled by default, shows the command line option responsible for the diagnostic message extra information to a warning (or error) is now marked as "note:" ** the internal Xref performance has improved, has all references in ascending order now and includes the total amount of direct references ** the internal listing got a speedup and has all error references in ascending order now ** cobc -g (and configure --enable-debug) use the most expressive debugging options available on the system ** cobc -g now auto-includes references to the COBOL source file and to all ENTRY and SECTION elements to ease source level debugging ** allow 3-byte CRT STATUS variable according to X/Open standard * Changes in the COBOL runtime (libcob) ** messages from the COBOL runtime are also translated now (if installed); to prevent this, disable translations in general with using the configure option --disable-nls (or by deactivating ENABLE_NLS in config.h) ** first-time file-locking under Win32 ** handle CRT STATUS either numerically, alphanumerically (4 digits) or as 3 bytes according to X/Open standard, depending on format and size ** execution times of INSPECT and INITIALIZE with OCCURS were heavily cut down, to fully benefit from this a recompile is necessary ** libcob.h does no longer auto-include gmp.h (behavior since 2.x), if you link against libcob and need cob_decimal include gmp.h/mpir.h yourself before; otherwise you do not need it in your include path anymore ** convenience functions for direct C access to COBOL fields and for debugging were added, see new C-API documentation ** Breaking change: previously the return-code of registered error handlers (by CBL_ERROR_PROC) were ignored. This was changed according to the documentation for CBL_ERROR_PROC -> a RETURN-VALUE of ZERO skips further error handlers to be called, including the internal one. * New build features ** Running the internal tests by make check now fails if the testsuite has any unexpected result. ** The modules and test programs in the NIST COBOL-85 test suite (tests/cobol85) may now be build and/or tested and/or the test results checked separately. You now may also run the tests with a previous installed version of GnuCOBOL (or a version specified by a manual temporary setup). For details see tests/cobol85/README. ** new configure option --with-math=ARG to specify which math multiple precision library is to be used, where ARG may be: check (default), gmp, mpir ** new configure options --with-xml2 / -without-xml2 to explicit force/disable XML runtime support, otherwise it will be included if found as working ** new configure option --with-json / -without-json to explicit force/disable JSON runtime support, otherwise it will be included if found as working Note: As a special case you may built-in cJSON by placing its source in the folder "libcob". If it is included there, this version will be compiled into libcob. It may be enforced with --with-json=local, like --with-json=cjson and --with-json=json-c enforce the given library. ** To adjust the build system for GMP/MPIR you may use the new variables GMP_CFLAGS / MPIR_CFLAGS and GMP_LIBS / MPIR_LIBS. If unset configure will try pkg-config. ** To adjust configure to use libxml2 you may use the new variables XML2_CFLAGS and XML2_LIBS. If unset configure will use pkg-config / xml2-config. ** To adjust configure to use libcjson you may use the new variables CJSON_CFLAGS and CJSON_LIBS, similar JSON_C_CFLAGS and JSON_C_LIBS for libjson-c. If unset configure will use pkg-config. ** new configure option --enable-hardening to either enable GNU C's hardening options or leave as-is, or disable (which previous versions effectively did) ** build system: defaults.h is not created or included anymore, all configure provided defines are now found in the single header config.h ** Any time after `make` you can call `pre-inst-env` script to use the still- uninstalled binaries. Samples: pre-inst-env cobc -xj prog.cob pre-inst-env cobcrun -M prog start pre-inst-env may also be called without parameters to start a new shell session with the environment adjusted to use the uninstalled version. * Too many bug fixes to list here (please check ChangeLogs for full details), includes the following CVEs: ** compiler (may be triggered with special crafted source files) CVE-2019-14468, CVE-2019-14486, CVE-2019-14528, CVE-2019-14541, CVE-2019-16396, CVE-2019-16395 * GnuCOBOL's getopt implementation honors POSIXLY_CORRECT now: if set to any value the option parsing in cobc, cobcrun and CBL_GC_GETOPT stops at the first nonoption, otherwise it stays with the old behavior and re-orders nonoptions to the end) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GnuCOBOL 3.0-rc1 released (20180422) * New GnuCOBOL features ** REPORTWRITER module added ** INDEXED file handling: added support for sparse and split keys ** file handling: added support for [RE]WRITE FILE file FROM source ** DISPLAY ... UPON PRINTER may be redirected to an external command (new runtime configuration COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_PIPE) or appended to a file (new runtime configuration COB_DISPLAY_PRINT_FILE, which takes precedence) ** XML GENERATE statement (note: runtime support needs additional library libxml2) ** JSON GENERATE statement (note: runtime support needs additional library cJSON) ** Improved support for different compiler extensions (ACUCOBOL, IBM, Fujitsu, MicroFocus COBOL, Microsoft COBOL, RM/COBOL and more) ** Parser support for many features of different compilers, for example PIC 1 / USAGE BIT, ACUCOBOL extensions for graphical controls VALIDATE statement and much more. Most of them will be fully implemented in a later version... ** Option to dump (partial) data of modules on abort. Use new cobc option -fdump=<scope> to prepare the module and optional use new runtime configuration options COB_DUMP_FILE and COB_DUMP_WIDTH to adjust the dump. ** C interface: new functions cob_set_runtime_option / cob_get_runtime_option to set/get special runtime options (currently FILE * for trace and printer output) or to reload the runtime configuration after changing environment ** file handling: include support for a callable EXTFH interface also provided by several compilers including Micro Focus This allows users to insert an external file handler while retaining all of the normal COBOL I/O functions with a possible callback to libcob. To have the compiled program call `yourfh()` for file I/O use: `cobc -fcallfh=yourfh` In turn `yourfh()` may call `EXTFH()` to use I/O functions from GnuCOBOL. The external file handler can also be directly invoked from COBOL, too, using `CALL "EXTFH"`. ** Note: Not all flags contained in the FCD3 are handled already ** * Changed cobc options: ** The option -debug (runtime checks) no longer implies -ftrace (option to trace program flow of the generated module with COB_SET_TRACE). You may specify -ftrace[all] along -debug if you want to use this feature. ** The option -E (preprocess file) does not imply an output file any more. If no output file is explicit specified with -o filename.i the output will be written to stdout (behavior of versions 1.1 is restored). Requesting output to stdout explicit by using a dash as output name is also possible. ** Changed options for listing: The option -tsymbols was replaced by -ftsymbols and therefore can now also be explicit deactivated by specifying -fno-tsymbols. New options for suppressing (or explicit requesting) parts of the listing: -fno-theader suppress all headers from listing while keeping page breaks -fno-tmessages suppress warning and error summary from listing -fno-tsource suppress actual source from listing (for example to only produce the cross-reference) ** The option -fif-cutoff (option to change generated C sources to use a label + goto for nested if/else) was deactivated to allow the C compiler to fully control the program flow. ** Please report if you have a need for this option as it will be ** ** removed permanently in the next release of GnuCOBOL otherwise. ** * Changes in the COBOL runtime (libcob) ** updated exception handling, GnuCOBOL now only cleans raised exceptions when requested by SET LAST EXCEPTION TO OFF ** The standard-format for program tracing was changed and is now adjustable by the runtime configuration option COB_TRACE_FORMAT. * New build features ** New test suite for manual tests (especially SCREEN I/O), run with `make checkmanual`. Note: You may want to adjust the test runner tests/run_prog_manual.sh which defaults to xterm in GUI environments and screen in terminal environments. ** new configure option --enable-debug-log to allow *internal* tracing of GnuCOBOL (intended for developers of GnuCOBOL only) * Too many bug fixes to list here (please check ChangeLogs for full details). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GnuCOBOL 2.2 released (20170906) * Move to GPL/LGPL 3 * Most noteworthy new GnuCOBOL features (too many to list them all) ** User Defined Functions, FUNCTION-ID. ** New intrinsic functions ABSOLUTE-VALUE alias for ABS CURRENCY-SYMBOL CURRENCY-SYMBOL of the current program FORMATTED-CURRENT-DATE ISO 8601 datetime function FORMATTED-DATE ISO 8601 datetime function FORMATTED-DATETIME ISO 8601 datetime function FORMATTED-TIME ISO 8601 datetime function TEST-FORMATTED-DATETIME ISO 8601 datetime function INTEGER-OF-FORMATTED-DATE date to integer HIGHEST-ALGEBRAIC now implemented LOWEST-ALGEBRAIC now implemented LOCALE-COMPARE now implemented NUMVAL-F now implemented TEST-NUMVAL now implemented TEST-NUMVAL-C now implemented TEST-NUMVAL-F now implemented LENGTH-AN alias for BYTE-LENGTH MODULE-CALLER-ID return the name of the caller MODULE-DATE current module: compilation date MODULE-TIME current module: compilation time MODULE-FORMATTED-DATE current module: formatted datetime MODULE-ID current module: PROGRAM-ID MODULE-PATH current module: path on compile time MODULE-SOURCE current module: name on compile time MONETARY-DECIMAL-POINT LOCALE based fiscal decimal point MONETARY-THOUSANDS-SEPARATOR LOCALE based fiscal visual grouping separator Note: The functions that are actually available as intrinsic functions depend on the -std used. Function names that aren't marked as intrinsic functions by the current -std can be used freely as user defined words or even as user defined functions. ** New system functions C$CALLEDBY return the name of the caller CBL_GC_FORK fork current process (not on Windows) CBL_GC_WAITPID wait for process to end CBL_GC_GETOPT (CBL_OC_GETOPT) command line option parser for COBOL CBL_GC_PRINTABLE (C$PRINTABLE) check if character is printable CBL_GC_HOSTED (CBL_OC_HOSTED) provides access to C extern variables, like stdin, errno CBL_GC_NANOSLEEP CBL_OC_NANOSLEEP CBL_GET_SCR_SIZE get current terminal size - if any CBL_READ_KBD_CHAR get character from terminal CBL_SET_CSR_POS set current position on terminal x'E4' clear terminal screen x'E5' ring the bell ** full support for ANSI 85 debugging module: USE FOR DEBUGGING declarative procedures (only part of the generation if WITH DEBUGGING MODE is active during compilation) and special register: 01 DEBUG-ITEM. 02 DEBUG-LINE PIC X(6). 02 FILLER PIC X VALUE SPACE. 02 DEBUG-NAME PIC X(30). 02 FILLER PIC X VALUE SPACE. 02 DEBUG-SUB-1 PIC S9(4). 02 FILLER PIC X VALUE SPACE 02 DEBUG-SUB-2 PIC S9(4). 02 FILLER PIC X VALUE SPACE. 02 DEBUG-SUB-3 PIC S9(4). 02 FILLER PIC X VALUE SPACE. 02 DEBUG-CONTENTS PIC X(n). With "n" being at least 30, size is increased if USE FOR DEBUGGING identifier is used and the identifier has a longer size. Note: COB_SET_DEBUG activates the specified debugging sections at runtime ** many new / extended COBOL statements from COBOL2002/2014 and extensions from different COBOL dialects ** more SWITCHes: from SWITCH-01 to SWITCH-36 and its variants from many COBOL dialects ** more IEEE numeric types added, FLOAT-DECIMAL-16, FLOAT-DECIMAL-34, etc ** more literal types added, numeric boolean etc. ** most of the COBOL 2014 spec Compiler Directive Facility is in ** optional: stricter syntax checks ** Optimization: in cases where the condition in IF/WHEN is resolved down to TRUE or FALSE at compile time cobc doesn't emit any code ** refactored and extended compiler and runtime messages with available translations (currently to Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch, partial to German) ** screen IO: many extended ACCEPT DISPLAY and SCREEN SECTION changes ** Direct call interface for C: CALL-CONVENTION for CALLs and PROCEDURE DIVISION ENTRY-CONVENTION for PROCEDURE DIVISION and ENTRY statement SIZE of parameters specified for CALL ... BY VALUE RETURN NOTHING for calling void functions RETURN ADDRESS OF VAR for calling functions returning a pointer PROCEDURE DIVISION RETURNING OMITTED -> callable as void function ** Much, much more! * New cobc options: ** New -std options: cobol2014 COBOL 2014 Standard xopen X/Open COBOL Standard mf-strict Micro Focus COBOL compatibility - strict ibm-strict IBM COBOL compatibility - strict ibm-strict MVS/VM COBOL compatibility - strict acu ACUCOBOL-GT compatibility acu-strict ACUCOBOL-GT compatibility - strict bs2000 BS2000 COBOL compatibility (back again) bs2000-strict BS2000 COBOL compatibility - strict rm RM-COBOL compatibility rm-strict RM-COBOL compatibility - strict Note: The GnuCOBOL compiler tries to limit both the feature-set and reserved words to the specified compiler when the "strict" dialects are used. COBOL sources compiled with these dialects are therefore likely to compile with the specified compiler and vice versa: sources that were compiled on the specified compiler should compile without any issues with GnuCOBOL. With the "non-strict" dialects GnuCOBOL will activate the complete feature-set where it doesn't directly conflict with the specified dialect, including reserved words and GnuCOBOL specific extensions. COBOL sources compiled with these dialects therefore may work only with GnuCOBOL. COBOL sources may need a change because of rich feature-set and reserved words in GnuCOBOL, otherwise offending words may be removed by `-fno-reserved=word`. COBOL-85, X/Open COBOL, COBOL 2002 and COBOL 2014 are always "strict". ** New listing options: -t listing, -T wide listing, --tlines=lines, lines per page of listing; -Xref now handled internally, if you want to use cobxref define COB_EXTERNAL_XREF during configure Note: -P, generate preprocessor listing, is still available (and improved) ** All compiler configuration flags may be set on command line to override a specific setting of the current -std, see cobc --help ** All warnings can be explicit enabled/disabled or even marked as error, see cobc --help, examples: -Wunreachable warn about likely unreachable statements -Wno-dialect do not warn about dialect specific issues -Werror treat all warnings as errors -Werror=<warning> treat specified <warning> as error ** Options for the C compiler/linker: -K <entry>, compile entry point as static (resolve at link time) -A, add options to C compile phase -Q, add options to C link phase ** Miscellaneous -i -info, display build/environment -D define symbol for Compiler Directive Facility -j -job=args, run job after compile input filename of '-' reads source from standard in For more: see cobc --help * Changed cobc options: ** The option -ffunctions-all (allow use of intrinsic functions without FUNCTION keyword) was replaced by -fintrinsics=ALL. -fintrinsics allows to also specify that only specific functions may be used without the FUNCTION keyword. The preferred option is to not use these cobc options at all but to specify this within the COBOL code (CONFIGURATION SECTION. REPOSITORY.) * New cobcrun options: -i -info, display build/environment -r -runtime-config, display runtime configuration -c -config, set runtime config from file -M -module, set path/module name when looking for entry * New build features make test downloads NIST testsuite if necessary now usable with parallel builds (make -j4 test) make checkall runs both the internal and the NIST testsuite ** testsuite defaults to coloured output ** Windows(tm) Visual Studio build support files added, options to validate the software generated with VS against both test suites ** removed maintainer mode - if files need a rebuild because of a change they are always rebuild ** help2man, bison and flex are checked during configure, if they need to be invoked and are missing a useful error message is given ** All files created by GnuCOBOL runtime use the same file permission settings now: COB_FILE_MODE which was changed to 0666 ** The maximum number of fields passed via CALL changed from hard-wired 64 fields to a configuration option (defaulting to 192, current max. 252) ** changed unix package name from "gnu-cobol" to "gnucobol" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GnuCOBOL 1.1 released (20140118) * Change unix package name to gnu-cobol, and project to GnuCOBOL * for a full list of changes see https://gnucobol.sourceforge.io/faq/ #what-are-the-differences-between-opencobol-1-1-and-gnucobol-1-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OpenCOBOL 1.1 released (20090206) * Note: was tagged as pre-release and later on as full version ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OpenCOBOL 1.0 released ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.33 * New compile option '-x'. This causes the compiler to produce an executable program. '-fmain' is deprecated. * Remove long option --verbose. Use '-v' for verbosity. Problem is with getopt_long_only which does not like eg. -mv * New conformity option -std=bs2000. * FUNCTION is implemented. See cobc/reserved.c for a list of what is implemented. * Nested programs are partially supported. * LINAGE is implemented. * EXTERNAL on FD is implemented. * SAME RECORD AREA is implemented. * New config variables - "perform-osvs", "sticky-linkage". These are activated for -std=ibm and -std=mvs. "relax-level-hierarchy". Allows mismatched data description level numbers. Activated for -std=mf, ibm, mvs and bs2000. * Support for non-gcc compilers. * Large file support, system dynamic loading and Berkeley DB inclusion are default for the configure. ie. ./configure assumes --with-db --with-lfs64 --with-dl * New configure option --with-patch-level=<n> Default is 0. * At run time, version checking is done. ie. When executing/loading Cobol programs, the version (eg. 0.33) and the patch level (eg. 0) are checked against the OC library version/patch level. * Libtool is not required for systems that support native dynamic loading. This includes GNU/Linux, Cygwin and MingW amongst others. * Note to developers : See README for required software versions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.32 * Stability update - See individual ChangeLogs * New internal register - NUMBER-OF-CALL-PARAMETERS * New config variables - larger-redefines-ok, relaxed-syntax-check * Powerpc changes - We now pass all OC and Cobol85 tests ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.31 * Stability update - See individual ChangeLogs * New driver program - "cobcrun" This allows all application programs to be compiled as modules and driven by "cobcrun" similar to MF's "cobrun". Syntax - cobcrun <MAINPROG> [Arguments to program "MAINPROG"] As "cobcrun" is linked with the static version of OpenCOBOL libraries, it is easier to maintain concurrent versions on the same system. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.30 * Installation changes ** No longer use readline. ** No longer use run-time configuration file (libcob.conf) ** libdb is now optional. Use the new configure option --with-db1 to link with libdb1. Use the new configure option --with-db to link with libdb. Otherwise, libdb will not be linked, and indexed files and SORT/MERGE statements will not work. *** New subdirectory `config' will be installed under $prefix/share/gnucobol. ** Compatibility changes *** New -std options: default used when you omit -std cobol85 COBOL 85 Standard cobol2002 COBOL 2002 Standard ibm IBM COBOL compatibility mf Micro Focus COBOL compatibility v023 OpenCOBOL 0.23 compatibility *** Compile-time options can be stored in a "config" file. See config/default.conf for details. *** Binary data items are now big endian. The config option `binary-byteorder' controls this. *** Numeric sign of USAGE DISPLAY items has been changed as follows: Positive: 0123456789 Negative: pqrstuvwxy The config option `display-sign' controls this. *** Data items defined in the working-storage section are initialized at the beginning of program by default. The config option `auto-initialize' controls this. *** SORT statement now creates a temporary file in /tmp for sorting and removes it after sorting. ** Feature changes *** COPY statements try to complement the following file extensions: .CBL, .COB, .cbl, or .cob. *** COPY / REPLACE statements are reimplemented for better replacement. *** SPECIAL-NAMES. FORMFEED IS ... *** ALPHABET ... IS EBCDIC. *** EXTERNAL clause. *** SHARING clause. *** USAGE COMP-5 and COMP-X. *** USAGE POINTER and ADDRESS OF operator. *** LENGTH OF operator. *** PROCEDURE DIVISION USING BY REFERENCE/CONTENT/VALUE. *** DISPLAY ... ENVIRONMENT-NAME. ACCEPT ... ENVIRONMENT-VALUE. *** COLLATING SEQUENCE in the SORT and MERGE statements. *** EXIT PERFORM [CYCLE] statement. *** SORT table. *** OPEN ... WITH NO REWIND / WITH LOCK recognized, though not working. *** Literal concatenation (the `&' operator). ** Compiler changes *** New compiler environment variable TMPDIR. *** New compiler environment variable COB_LDFLAGS. *** The runtime environment variable COB_CONFIG_FILE has been removed. *** New runtime environment variable COB_DYNAMIC_RELOADING. *** New compiler option `--list-reserved', which list all reserved words. *** New compiler option `-conf', which specifies the config file. *** New compiler option `-ext', which specifies the copy file extension. *** The compiler option `-O' now does C level optimization. *** New compiler option `-O2', which does further C level optimization. *** New compiler option `-L' and `-l', which are passed to the C compiler. *** New compiler option `-ftrace', which display section names at run time. *** New compiler option `-fsyntax-only', which does syntax error check only without any output. *** New compiler option `-fstatic-call', which is equivalent to `-static'. *** New compiler option `-fdebugging-line', which enables debugging lines. *** New compiler option `-fsource-location', which includes source location in the output. *** New compiler option `-fline-directive', which includes line directive in the output. *** New compiler option `-fruntime-inlining', which is the replacement of obsolete options `-finline-move' and `-finline-get-int'. *** New compiler option `-w', which inhibits warnings. *** New compiler option `-Wredefinition', which warns redefined names. *** The compiler options `-static' and `-dynamic' are obsolete. *** The compiler option `-column' removed. ** Many improvement for compatibility. ** Many many bug fixes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.23 ** Installation changes *** We use the GNU MP library again. ** Run-time library changes *** `cob_resolve' now search the main program for the module name. ** Bug fixes *** Duplicate use of intermediate field variables. *** fseek issues on the MinGW environment. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.22 ** Installation changes *** We no longer depend on the GNU MP library. Decimal arithmetic is done by using `long long'. ** Compiler changes *** Alphabet-name has been implemented. *** Variable-length table has been implemented. *** De-editing (move numeric-edited to numeric) has been implemented. ** Bug fixes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.21 ** Installation changes *** New configure argument --with-lfs64. ** Compiler changes *** New option -std, which specifies which COBOL standard to use. Currently the following standards are available: gnu GnuCOBOL (default) cobol85 COBOL 85 cobol2002 COBOL 2002 mvs IBM COBOL for MVS & VM *** New option -O, which enables some optimization. *** New option -debug, which enables run-time error checking. *** New option -Wobsolete, which reports obsolete features. *** New option -Warchaic, which reports archaic features. *** -Wnext-sentence has been removed. Use -Warchaic instead. *** -fdebugging-line has been removed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.20 ** cobpp has been integrated into cobc. Now cobc is the only binary program. ** cobc now generates an executable without `-main' flag. `-main' has been renamed to `-fmain', which is turned on by default if none of -E, -C, -S, -c, or -m is given. ** The default source format is now the fixed form. The format will not be detected automatically. You need to use SOURCE FORMAT compiler directive as described below. This conforms to the COBOL 2002 standard. ** Compiler directive "SOURCE FORMAT" is now supported. Put the following line at the beginning of file if you want to use the free-form: >>SOURCE FORMAT IS FREE ** Option `-semi-fixed' has been removed. If you want to expand the program text area over 72 columns, use the option `-column' instead. ** New option `-column', which specifies the end of program text area. ** New option `-T', which specifies the tab width. ** New warning options: -Wall Enable all warnings -Wcolumn-overflow Warn any text after column 72 -Wconstant Warn inconsistent constant -Wparentheses Warn lacks of parentheses around AND within OR -Wnext-sentence Warn uses of NEXT SENTENCE -Wimplicit-terminator Warn lacks of scope terminator (END-XXX) -Wstrict-typing Warn type mismatch strictly ** Option `debug' has been renamed to `-fdebugging-line'. ** USAGE PACKED-DECIMAL is now supported. ** Improved error checking. ** Additional testsuite entries. ** Bug fixes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.12 ** Improved compile-time error check. ** Additional testsuite entries. ** Bug fixes. * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ** Part of run-time library interface has been redesigned. ** Bug fixes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.10 ** Autoconf 2.57, Automake 1.7.2, Libtool 1.4.3, and Gettext 0.11.5 are used for packaging. ** New file cob.pc, which is used by pkg-config script. ** libcob.conf is now installed under sysconfdir (i.e., $(PREFIX)/etc). The default value of COB_CONFIG_FILE has been changed appropriately. ** The directory `tests' includes new testsuites. "make check" will run the tests. ** We use db1 again instead of db2 or db3. ** New option -semi-fixed. ** New option -Wtrailing-line. ** CALL statements now accept CONTENT LENGTH OF clause. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.9.7 ** The default value of COB_CONFIG_FILE has been changed to "$PREFIX/etc/gnucobol/libcob.conf". ** SORT and MERGE statements have been impelemented. ** Preliminary implementation of SCREEN SECTION. ** Many bug fixes and improvements. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.9.6 ** cobc now requires `-main' flag to build an executable from a COBOL file. Without -main, cobc does not generate a main function. See manual for details. ** Run-time configuration file: libcob.conf The environment variable `COB_CONFIG_FILE' specifies the file name (default: "${prefix}/share/gnucobol/libcob.conf"). ** Use gettext for international messages. ** Include the test suite in subdir `testsuite'. ** Many bug fixes and improvements. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.9.5 ** Support Berkeley DB 2.0. ** Many bug fixes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Changes in OpenCOBOL 0.9.4 ** OpenCOBOL now requires Berkeley DB 3.0 or later. ** File I/O routine (libcob/fileio.c) has been reimplemented. ** New NIST Test Suite modules: SM, IC, SQ, RL, IX. ** Many bug fixes.