Specifying Type Names

You can refer to class and interface names in managed COBOL by using a type-specifier, which can be defined by using:

• Managed COBOL data types that correspond to types in other managed languages, such as binary-long, which corresponds to System.Int32 in .NET COBOL and int in JVM COBOL. For example:

      01 anInteger binary-long
      01 aFloatingPointItem float-short 
      01 aString string

• The TYPE keyword followed by the class name. For example:

      01 objMyType type MyType.          
      01 objDateTime type DateTime.         *> .NET COBOL 
      01 objDateTime type java.util.Date.   *> JVM COBOL

  Where:

  • objMyType is defined as an object of type myType
  • objDateTime is defined as an object of type DateTime in .NET COBOL or java.util.Date in JVM COBOL
• The class defined in a repository entry (for backward compatibility only)

To define a namespace to represent long class names so that you need to type a short name only, use the ILUSING directive.

In .NET COBOL, to refer to a generic type using the TYPE literal syntax, you enumerate the generic parameters within square brackets. The following example declares myNames as an item of type Dictionary with both generic parameters set to string (System.String):

myNames type System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[string, string].