This release provides enhancements in the following areas:
Integration with the Eclipse IDE
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Enhancements are available in the following areas:
- Using the search facility,
Search > Micro Focus, you can now limit the search to the copybooks used by the current program rather than all copybooks in the project or the entire workspace.
- The editor provides a new context menu command,
Extract COBOL code to copybook, that enables you to move a selected segment of the code to a new copybook file in your project. The segment of code moved to a copybook is replaced with a COPY statement in the original program.
- Support for Eclipse 4.5 - after installing
Visual COBOL, you can add it as a plugin into a separate instance of Eclipse 4.5. See your product's
Installation notes.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
COBOL language enhancements
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Numeric, edited and external floating point items can now specify USAGE NATIONAL when the NATIONAL"2" Compiler directive is in effect. Signed numeric items must be specified with the SIGN IS SEPARATE clause.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Classic Data File Tools
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A new command line utility is available which enables you to initiate the following actions: open data files, create or open record layout files, create or open segment layout files, and open IMS databases using a DBD or PSB file. Note that although you can initiate these actions from the command line, you must complete them from within the IDE.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Compiler directives
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The following Compiler directives are new in this release:
- COMMAND-LINE-LINKAGE - enables you to call a program and pass the command line to the main program as a parameter to be accessed via the Linkage Section. This offers equivalent functionality to the command_line_linkage tunable, which has now been deprecated.
- EBC-COL-SEQ - controls the behavior of an EBCDIC collating sequence, specified in a NATIVE"EBCDIC" program. EBC-COL-SEQ"1" (the default) maintains use of the long-standing fixed (platform-independent) EBCDIC collating sequence. EBC-COL-SEQ"2" prompts use of the latest CODESET table, which varies according to platform and user-controlled MFCODESET environment variable setting.
- NATIONAL - enables you to specify numeric, edited and external floating point items as USAGE NATIONAL.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Editor writing assistance
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This release provides the following enhancements:
- Colorization of conditional compilation regions - by default, inactive code is now colored the same as Compiler directive elements. Inactive code is defined as code within conditional blocks that do not evaluate with the applied Compiler settings.
- $REGION statement - support is provided for the $REGION Compiler-control statement. You can use $REGION - $END-REGION to surround blocks of code that you want to fold or expand in the editor.
- AutoCorrect - you can configure the editor to automatically fix the most frequently misspelled words. You use the IDE preferences to specify a list of words that you sometimes mistype, and the correct spellings for them. Whenever you misspell that word, the editor automatically replaces it with correct version. This feature is enabled by default and can be configured from a new preference page in
.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
File handling
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MFJSORT ICETOOL now supports the USING parameter in the SELECT operator.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Interface Mapping Toolkit
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This release supports JSON schemas for the generation of REST Web service clients in the Eclipse IDE.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Library routines
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The following library routine contains new functionality:
- CBL_GET_PROGRAM_INFO - a new function (function 10) has been added for native COBOL which returns the path and program name, or the program name only of a particular program.
For more information see
Related Information at the end of this topic.
Tutorials
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The product help includes the following new tutorial:
- Tutorial: SQL - Deploying an Enterprise JavaBean Containing JVM COBOL to a JBoss Application Server -
that walks you through the process of deploying an EJB that contains JVM COBOL code.
