Set Up the AACT Project

Walks you through the steps required to create the AACT project in Visual Studio,, import the AACT demonstration files, install the resource definition file, and build the project.

Create the AACT project

  1. In Visual Studio, click File > New > Project.
  2. In the Create a new project dialog box, select COBOL from the Language drop-down list.
  3. On the Platforms drop-down list, select Windows.
  4. On the Project Type drop-down list, select Enterprise Server.
  5. On the list of filtered templates, select Mainframe Subsystem Application, and then click Next.
  6. Complete the fields as follows:
    Field Value
    Project name AACT
    Location c:\tutorials\ASM
  7. Check Place solution and project in the same directory.
  8. Click Create.

    Visual Studio creates the project in the c:\tutorials\ASM\AACT directory, and opens the Solution Explorer showing the AACT solution and project.

    Note: By default, all new COBOL projects you create in Visual Studio are 64-bit.

Import the AACT demonstration files

In this step, you import the files from the AACT demonstration transaction into your project, and copy the resource definition file to the project.

  1. In the Visual Studio Solution Explorer, right-click the AACT project, and select Add > Existing Item from the context menu.
  2. Browse to the AACT sample files, located in the %PUBLIC%\Documents\Micro Focus\Enterprise Developer\Samples\Mainframe\Assembler\Classic\AACT directory.
  3. On the Add Existing Item dialog box, click the drop-down list associated with the File Name field, and select All Files (*.*).
  4. Select all of the following files, and then click Add to add them to the project:
    • AACTREC.cpy
    • AACTSET.bms
    • AACTSET.cpy
    • aactset.mac
    • aactrec.mac
    • asmacct0.mlc
    • asmacct1.mlc
    • asmacct2.mlc
    • asmacct3.mlc
    • asmacct4.mlc
    • asmacctm.mlc

Install the dfhdrdat resource definition file

  1. At a command prompt or using Windows File Explorer, create a subdirectory under c:\tutorial\ASM\AACT named SYSTEM.
  2. Copy the dfhdrdat file from the %PUBLIC%\Documents\Micro Focus\Enterprise Developer\Samples\Mainframe\Assembler\Classic\AACT\SYSTEM directory to the c:\tutorials\ASM\AACT\SYSTEM subdirectory that you just created. This is the file that contains the resource definitions you need to create an enterprise server to run the AACT transaction.

Configure and build the AACT project

  1. Double-click the Properties folder AACT project, then click the COBOL tab in the properties.
  2. Note that Platform target is set to x64. This is because Visual Studio creates 64-bit projects by default.
  3. Enter .\loadlib in the Output path field. This will be the location of the build artefacts.
  4. Click File > Save All.
  5. Right-click the AACT project name in Solution Explorer; then select Build.

    You can watch the progress of this process in the Output window.

  6. When the build is complete, save the project.

Start the HACloud session

Ensure that the Micro Focus HACloud service property is set to start up automatically. For instructions on how to do this, see Starting the HACloud Session Server

To start the HACloud session server on Windows:
  1. Ensure you have a 64-bit Java installed and added to the PATH environment variable.
  2. Open the Windows Services Manager.
  3. Click Micro Focus HA Cloud, and click Start the service.
  4. Alternatively, you can execute the following command from a command prompt to start the service:
    net start mfhacloud