Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > Welcome > Upgrading to Visual COBOL for Visual Studio > Differences between Visual COBOL and Net Express > Compiling and Building Differences

Compiling and Building Differences

There are several aspects of compiling and building applications that behave differently in Visual COBOL. You might need to change the project properties and update some of the Compiler directives and settings that you previously used.

Output File Formats
Each project compiles into a single file (.dll, .so or .exe), or to multiple files of the same file type with one output file for each source file (.dll, .so, .exe, .int, or .gnt). As well as an .lbr file, which contains a collection of .int and .gnt files on Windows, you now can use a .dll as the container for application components.
Compiler directives
When you upgrade your source code to Visual COBOL some Compiler directives that were specifically designed for 16-bit systems now produce an error on compilation because they are no longer relevant. You should remove them from your code and directives files before you compile.
Linking
The static run-time system and the single-threaded run-time system on Windows are no longer required and they are not shipped with Visual COBOL. Applications built with Visual COBOL are now linked to the shared or dynamic run-time systems.
Called Programs and Dependencies
At run time, called programs are found in the same way as before. However, there are some new ways to set COBPATH and copy files into a common folder.
File Handler
The File Handler .obj files are not available in Visual COBOL. Visual COBOL uses the File handler packaged in the mffh.dll file instead.
OpenESQL Assistant
The OpenESQL Assistant data source names (DSNs) in Visual COBOL must be configured as ODBC or ADO.NET DSNs.
SQL Compiler Directive Options
When you upgrade your SQL appplications to Visual COBOL, some applications could require additional SQL compiler directive options to avoid compiler errors.
XML PARSE Statement
In Net Express, the default setting for the XMLPARSE Compiler directive is COMPAT, which causes the XML PARSE statement to return information and events for IBM Enterprise COBOL Version 3. In Visual COBOL, the default is XMLPARSE(XMLSS), which returns information and events for IBM Enterprise COBOL Version 4.

Parent topic: Differences between Visual COBOL and Net Express