Specifying Build Settings

Micro Focus has the following recommendations for choosing the build output format and for using Compiler directives when building your applications.

Compile to .dll or .exe files

Micro Focus recommends that you compile your new projects to native executables, .dll and .exe, instead of to .int or .gnt code.

.dll and .exe files have multiple advantages in modern computing environments such as:

Better performance compared to .int and .gnt code
Support for the use of native resources with your projects
Support for static references to native APIs (such as call-convention 74 and litlink)
The code is shared between the processes
Enable linking COBOL, C and C++ code together

Microsoft's certification program requires that your applications are compiled to either .dll or .exe.

Use relative paths

Use relative paths in Output path on the COBOL page in your projects' properties to make your projects portable.

Recommended Compiler directives

These are some of the Compiler directives that you can use to generate additional information depending on whether you are building for Debug or for Release.

In Debug:

Use	Do not use	Reason
ANIM		Creates extra information which is required for debugging your application.
TESTCOVER		Generates a statistical execution profile and includes it in the compiled output.
OPT		Generates extra information in the compiled output.
	PROFILE	This is used to measure time lapse in a real user environment so is not appropriate for debug mode.

In Release:

Use	Do not use	Reason
PROFILE		You should profile your applications in release mode. Must not be used in conjunction with ANIM, TESTCOVER or any other Compiler directive that generates any extra debug mode instrumentation because this would not be measuring a real run time situation.
	ANIM	Create extra information which makes the build output bigger and slower to run, so is not recommended for deploying applications.
	TESTCOVER	Create extra information which makes the build output bigger and slower to run, so is not recommended for deploying applications.
	OPT	Create extra information which makes the build output bigger and slower to run, so is not recommended for deploying applications.