Develop and Build within Visual Studio

You use Microsoft Visual Studio and its integrated development environment (IDE) to edit, compile and debug the COBOL applications. The IDE provides all the functionality to manage projects and debug applications.

You can develop applications that have been migrated from the mainframe and that use mainframe technologies like CICS, JCL, and IMS. These compile to native (Micro Focus) COBOL code, as .exe or .dll, and execute in conjunction with the run-time system.

You can also develop COBOL applications as .NET managed code. .NET managed COBOL programs compile to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), and they execute in conjunction with the Microsoft Common Language run-time system (CLR), just like programs in other .NET languages, such as C#.

Development support is provided for:

• Projects — with templates supplied for mainframe applications, console applications, class libraries and more
• Editing — with syntax colorization, background parsing and, for .NET managed code Intellisense
• Debugging code — with the usual features such as stepping, breakpoints, watch windows and querying execution environments
• Mainframe applications — for editing, compiling and debugging CICS programs, JCL applications and IMS applications