Order in Which Copybooks are Searched For

By default, the Compiler looks for copybooks in the same directory as the program using them. If your copybooks are elsewhere, you need to define their location.

You can define the location of your copybooks outside the project directory by specifying the copybook paths in project properties on the Dependency Paths tab, or by setting the environment variable COBCPY.

Each COPY statement in your program identifies a copybook to be copied. If the filename in the COPY statement is incomplete, because it lacks either an extension or a path, the Compiler searches for it as follows:

1. In the directory given by the COPY library-name. Note that if the name of the copybook is a qualified filename, that is, it includes the path or directory, the Compiler searches that directory only.
2. In the directory containing the main source program being compiled.
3. In any directories listed in the COBCPY environment variable, in the order specified.

If the COPY statement does not give the extension of the copybook's filename, the Compiler searches for files with extensions given by the directive COPYEXT.

When you search in the IDE for copybooks that your programs depend upon, the COPYEXT directive you set from the Additional directives field on the COBOL tab in your project's properties is used in preference to the list of copybook extensions specified in Tools > Options > Text Editor > Micro Focus COBOL > Advanced > Copybook extensions.