The majority of the applications created with
Net Express,
Mainframe Express
will continue to work in
Enterprise Developer without any changes. However, there are some differences between these development systems you should consider when you upgrade to
Enterprise Developer.
Compiling and Building Differences
There are several aspects of compiling and building applications that behave differently in
Enterprise Developer. You might need to change the project properties and update some of the Compiler directives and settings that you previously used.
- Output File Formats
- Each project compiles into a single file (.dll, .so or .exe), or to multiple files of the same file type with one output file for each source file (.dll, .so, .exe, .int, or .gnt). As well as an .lbr file, which contains a collection of .int and .gnt files on Windows, you now can use a .dll as the container for application components.
- Compiler directives
- When you upgrade your source code to
Enterprise Developer some Compiler directives that were specifically designed for 16-bit systems now produce an error on compilation because they are no longer relevant. You should remove them from your code and directives files before you compile.
- Linking
- The static run-time system and the single-threaded run-time system on Windows are no longer required and they are not shipped with
Enterprise Developer. Applications built with
Enterprise Developer are now linked to the shared or dynamic run-time systems.
- Called Programs and Dependencies
- At run time, called programs are found in the same way as before. However, there are some new ways to set COBPATH and copy files into a common folder.
- File Handler
- The File Handler .obj files are not available in
Enterprise Developer.
Enterprise Developer uses the File handler packaged in the
mffh.dll file instead.
- OpenESQL Assistant
- The OpenESQL Assistant data source names (DSNs) in
Enterprise Developer must be configured as
ODBC,
ADO.NET,
or
- SQL Compiler Directive Options
- When you upgrade your SQL appplications to
Enterprise Developer, some applications could require additional SQL compiler directive options to avoid compiler errors.
- XML PARSE Statement
- In
Net Express, the default setting for the XMLPARSE Compiler directive is COMPAT, which causes the XML PARSE statement to return information and events for IBM Enterprise COBOL Version 3. In
Enterprise Developer, the default is XMLPARSE(XMLSS), which returns information and events for IBM Enterprise COBOL Version 4.
Run-Time System Differences
There are some differences between the run-time systems supplied with
Enterprise Developer and those supplied with
Net Express and
Mainframe Express. These, however, do not affect your existing applications if you recompile them from the source code in
Enterprise Developer.
- OpenESQL
- Enterprise Developer sets the BEHAVIOR SQL Compiler directive option to MAINFRAME by default to provide optimal performance. To revert to the default behavior exhibited in Net Express, set the BEHAVIOR directive to UNOPTIMIZED.
- Single-Threaded Run-Time System
- The single-threaded run-time system is not available in
Enterprise Developer on Windows. Instead, both single-threaded and multi-threaded applications run using the multi-threaded run-time system. This has no effect on your existing applications.
- Static-Linked Run-Time System
- The static-linked run-time system is not available in
Enterprise Developer. Instead, you now link native code to the shared or dynamic run-time system. This has no effect on your existing applications.
- Enterprise Developer Co-existing with Earlier Micro Focus Products
- Some additional configuration is required to ensure
Enterprise Developer and
Studio Enterprise Edition work properly when installed on the same machine.
Restrictions and Unsupported Features
Some features in earlier
Micro Focus products are not available in
Enterprise Developer. However there are alternative techniques for many of these features.
- CBL2XML Utility
- The CBL2XML utility is currently available as a command line tool only.
- DBMS Preprocessors
- Earlier
Micro Focus products supported DBMS preprocessor versions that are not supported in
Enterprise Developer. For a list of currently supported DBMS preprocessors, see the
Database Access Support with Native COBOL and
Database Access Support with .NET Managed COBOL topics in your
Enterprise Developer documentation.
- Form Designer
- Form Designer is the
Net Express tool for creating user interfaces for CGI-based Internet and intranet applications. Form Designer and the HTML page wizard are not available in
Enterprise Developer.
- Host Compatibility Option (HCO)
- Mainframe Express provided a user interface for the Host Compatibility Option (HCO) feature. This user interface is not available in
Enterprise Developer; however the HCO Create Database, DDL Processor, DCLGEN, Export Data, and Import Data tools are available via batch command line invocation.
- INTLEVEL Support
- The INTLEVEL directive is rejected by the Compiler in
Enterprise Developer.
- NSAPI
- There is no support for NSAPI in
Enterprise Developer.
- Online Help System
- Net Express provided the Online Help System for creating online help from character-based applications, and displaying it on screen. It is not available in
Enterprise Developer and the Online Help System information file type (.HNF) is not supported.
- OpenESQL
- In both Net Express and Studio Enterprise Edition, support is provided for Oracle OCI in OpenESQL.
Enterprise Developer does not support Oracle OCI in OpenESQL.
- SQL Option for DB2
- In the Mainframe Express and Net Express IDEs, you could invoke SQL Option for DB2 from the main menu within the IDE. For
Enterprise Developer, SQL Option for DB2 is not available from the main menu in the IDE. Instead, all SQL Option for DB2 tools are available from
Start > All Programs > Micro Focus Enterprise Developer > Data Tools > SQL Option for DB2.
Run-Time Technology Differences
Some technologies behave differently in
Enterprise Developer and this might affect how you upgrade existing applications.
- Dialog System
- Support for Dialog System applications is available in
Enterprise Developer for Visual Studio if you install the Compatibility AddPack, distributed for free through the
Micro Focus SupportLine Web site, and the
Product Updates section.
- File Handling
- The way you integrate your own security modules into Fileshare has changed. Also, the FILEMAXSIZE setting is different for
Enterprise Developer and for
Net Express.
- Test Coverage
- Code coverage for native COBOL applications available from within the IDE in
Enterprise Developer integrates the Test Coverage functionality.
Editing and Debugging Differences
Much of the edit and debug functionality in
Net Express,
Mainframe Express
is available in
Enterprise Developer, but some of it has a different name or slightly different behavior. In addition there are some new features such as background parsing.
- Interface Mapping Toolkit
- Workflow Capture for the Interface Mapping Toolkit is not supported in
Enterprise Developer. This means Interface Mapping Toolkit users can no longer create service interfaces based on captured workflows in
Enterprise Developer.
- Program Breakpoints
- Program breakpoints are breakpoints that stop execution each time a specified program or entry point within the program is called. They are supported in
Enterprise Developer, but by default their behavior is different from their behavior in Net Express
- Remote Debugging
-
The
Net Express animserv utility used for debugging programs remotely has been replaced by
cobdebugremote (or
cobdebugremote64 when debugging 64-bit processes) in
Enterprise Developer.
- Source Pool View
-
The source pool view in
Net Express showed all source files available in the project directory, regardless of whether or not they are used in the current build type. This view is not available in
Enterprise Developer.
