Compatibility Options

Prior to Version 2.1, -Ca was a synonym for the compile-time option -Va. If you have an obsolete reference to -Ca in any of your compile scripts, or in your CBLFLAGS environment setting, make sure that you change this to -Va.

This option allows you to specify a default source name extension that is used for both the main source file and its COPY files. When it is specified, any source or COPY file name that does not explicitly specify an extension has the default extension appended to it. When the option is specified in RM/COBOL compatibility mode, the default extension is .CBL. Otherwise, the default is .COB.

You may specify an alternate default by naming it after an = sign in the -Ce option. For example, the option -Ce=CPY would cause the default extension to be .CPY.

ACUCOBOL-GT automatically adjusts the extension for upper or lower case to match the case of the name it is being appended to, then searches for the COPY file. If this first search fails, ACUCOBOL-GT matches the case of the extension specified in the -Ce compiler option to perform a second search for the COPY file.

This option causes the compiler to generate key numbers for indexed file alternate keys in a different order. Key numbers are used internally by the compiler and runtime to identify a key. Normally, you don't need to know the key number for a particular key, or care about the order in which they are generated. By default, the compiler sorts the alternate keys in record order before assigning key numbers. This ensures that the keys are given the same number regardless of the ordering in the file's SELECT. Specifying -Ck causes the compiler to assign key numbers in the SELECT order.

For most applications, the order in which key numbers are assigned is irrelevant. This option provides compatibility with some other COBOL compilers. This could be helpful when you are sharing data files between ACUCOBOL-GT-based programs and programs compiled with these other systems.

This option causes the compiler to be compatible with IBM/COBOL for the ASSIGN phrase of a SELECT statement. The syntax for the IBM/COBOL ASSIGN phrase is:

ASSIGN TO <filename-1> [<filename-2>
				<filename-3> ...]

where <filename-1>, <filename-2>, and <filename-3> are file identifiers.

Compiling with the -Cm option allows the IBM/COBOL ASSIGN phrase to ignore <filename-2> and <filename-3>. If <filename-1> contains any "-" characters, only the characters following the last "-" will constitute the file name assignment for the particular SELECT command. For example:

SELECT TESTFILE ASSIGN TO SYS000-AS-TEST1

results in a file called TEST1.

All of the existing ACUCOBOL-GT SELECT phrases and options can be used with the IBM/COBOL ASSIGN phrase.

Since there are slight differences between IBM COBOL versions, -Cv also takes the following optional arguments:

-Cv=OSVS specifies OSVS compatibility.

-Cv=VSC2 specifies VSC2 compatibility.

• CURRENT-DATE
• EXAMINE
• TIME-OF-DAY
• TRANSFORM

Note that CURRENT-DATE is a valid function in any compatibility mode.

Specifying this option does not prohibit the use of later features, but merely ensures that the changed features behave in the original fashion. Compare with the -Z3 option below.