Current Restrictions

This version of Data File Editor should only be used with the version of Visual COBOL or Enterprise Developer that it was installed with. The executable is not compatible with previous versions of either of these development products.

Structure files are created using the Classic Record Layout Editor or DFSTRCL command line tool. The Classic Record Layout Editor is available with Windows development products, and the DFSTRCL command line tool is available on Windows and UNIX platforms, for development and deployment products. The Classic Record Layout Editor is capable of producing structure files that contain default and conditional layouts, but DFSTRCL is only capable of producing structure files containing default layouts. For both tools, you are required to use an .idy file, which is generated using a development product.

Editing files is not supported if your environment contains any form of filename manipulation; for example, the DATAFILE and FILESUFFIX options within an extfh.cfg file, or the setting of the COBDATA environment variable. To work around this restriction, open Data File Editor from the Windows menu, ensuring no such filename manipulation variables are set at a system level.

The only supported UNIX platforms are SUSE, Red Hat, Solaris SPARC, and AIX.

There is no support for Unicode files.

There is no file conversion functionality; use the DFCONV command line utility if you require this functionality.

Earlier releases of this product used structure files with a .dfs extension. These files were a different structure to the conventional structure (.str) files and profile files (.pro files) used in Classic Data File Tools. In this release and beyond, we have reverted back to the conventional .str and .pro files. If you use .dfs structure files, you must use Classic Data File Tools to create equivalent structure and profile files.

There is no support for the following types of data file:

ACUCOBOL-GT (Vision)
IMS
RM/COBOL

National data items are not supported in record or segment layouts.

The editor is unable to display the Euro character (€) correctly. If you open a file that contains the character, it will be preserved after the file is closed as long as you do not edit it directly.

Line sequential files cannot contain binary characters. The INSERTNULL configuration option, which is ON by default, is ignored.

Line sequential file and relative files both use 0D0A as a record terminator on Windows, and 0A as a record terminator on UNIX. The LSRECDELIM and RELRECDELIM configuration options are ignored.

You cannot insert or append records for sequential ESDS files.

Note: The normal file system only allows you to append records to the end of this type of file.

You cannot delete or resize records for ESDS files.

Note: The normal file system does not allow you to delete or resize records for this type of file either.

When using compressed files through Fileshare, user-defined compression routine executables must reside on both the client and the server machine (and be on the PATH) in order to effectively edit the data file.

When editing records, Insert mode does not work when using a layout; you can only edit in Overwrite mode.

A limitation of the Windows clipboard means that when cutting or copying text from the editor, if the selection contains 0x00, any text after this character is truncated when pasted from the clipboard.